M is for Marx and MPC...and Multiple...and Model...Military Men!

A funny one (the title) as for years some people thought MPC meant Marx Plastics Company (or Corporation), a misnomer that wasn't helped by JG Garratt putting the 'fact' in his encyclopedia! It actually stood initially for Multiple Products Corp. (still sometimes erroneously referred to as Multiple Plastics Corp.), but the abbreviation became a corporate logo in its own right and was retained on packaging after the company had changed its form of 'address' to Multiple Toymakers.

However it's not as simple as that! On the model kits, they tended to call themselves 'Model' Products rather than Multiple which has some thinking there are two or more companies.

The trouble with researching toy companies is that it's often a reversed 'family tree', with lots of branches [children] below [past] and one or two (sometimes separate) trunks [grandparent] above [present]...and it's easier to quote the not always reliable (but here sufficient for the point) Wikipediea on this one:

"Ownership of the MPC name - About 1970, General Mills bought MPC from Toteff, who stayed on as president. General Mills also had purchased Lionel and the MPC name and logo even appeared on early 1970s train sets next to the Lionel logo. After [-which] these two names was stated, [as being] "...of the fun group at General Mills"
...
In the late 1970s, General Mills created a separate identity for its toy and hobby arm, CPG Products Corporation. During this time, MPC kits were marketed as part of CPG's Fundimensions Division. General Mills' ownership lasted until 1985 when it sold off its hobby companies. General Mills then floated its remaining toy division as Kenner Parker.

In 1985, MPC was purchased by The Ertl Company, which had also acquired AMT in 1981. Ertl, in turn, became part of RC2 Corporation in 1999, and was subsequently absorbed into TOMY International Inc. From 2008, MPC products were re-issued under license from TOMY by Round2 LLC, which ultimately acquired MPC's assets outright in 2011 (along with those of AMT and Ertl)."

Which is why for a while in the early 1980's you got Airfix/AMT/MPC/Ertl Star Wars kits, with different box'ings in different countries/regions, and you find companies like Britains and Waddington's are in the mix above as well.

Marx (Louis Marx and Co.) thankfully let us off a repeat headache here, they really only abbreviated to Mar- on some lines (Mar-toys, Mar-lines), while collectors have tended to use Mx in check-lists and catalogues. Marx did carry lots of other peoples stuff but tended to either ignore the suppliers origin/branding (Blue Box/Marx Sunshine Series), or sell as the sub-brand without a clue to Marx's ownership (ELM Disney-themed mini-vehicles and four-wheeled trolly thingies).

That's an awful lot of waffle about the post header/title! On to today's subject, which is the GI's from both companies.

Above are the 54mm US Marines from Marx, as issued in the play-sets. I am no expert on these (see links at bottom), but suspect some of them are later re-issue colours, from after the heyday of the Play Set as an American toy standard.

This should also be a complete pose sample - of the 1st version GI's. Of course the way American soldiers dressed in WWII, Korea or Vietnam means that the 'Marines' and GI's are  quite happy fighting alongside one another in a homogeneous unit, but that was how Marx sold them, and great that they did as it means more poses for your battles!

This is a shot of some of the new poses in the '2nd' set of GI's, which Kent Sprecher calls the 'medical' set for obvious reasons, in that the set contained a stretcher team and casualties. It also contained a few of the earlier figures from both the original GI set and the Marines.

The Stretcher team and wounded man, the actual stretcher is a Hong Kong copy, I don't have an original, but it fits!

Below is a shot to show the reused figures in that 2nd set, while to the left are a couple of compatible figures from other sets/sources, the marching chap is from an occasional addition to some play-sets, you got six marching with an NCO and Officer (neither in my collection I'm afraid!), while the seated chap presumably came in sets that had suitable vehicles (the Jeep?)

Good quality Hong Kong copies exist, here the darker green ones and the kneeling figure in pale green (although he may be an unmarked re-issue from the old moulds?), the other kneeling figure with the Tabs is - I think - the Brumberger/Superior/T-Cohn copy?

The MPC GI's, 54mm above and 50mm below, although as we'll see in a second; there's not much in it. When I looked in depth at the Soldiers of the World, I suggested that the MPC and Marx figures shared a sculptor, when you look at them all together it's obvious that they don't, just that the one (probably MPC's) sculptor was - shall we say 'influenced'? -  by the other!

I could go back and change that, with some more salmon pink, but there's plenty on that post already. Since all the speculation on that post was clearly shown tp be speculation, and given that the whole debate was rather ended by the Tatra discovery following a comment on that thread (amazing how many people then accidentally found the Tatra website - which had been there for years - without reference to this blog!), which negated the original debate;  it's all a bit academic really.

Also; the point I was making back then - given that at the time people where still trying to establish a link with the US as originator - was valid and stands, all three sets of figures are similar, but I'd say the closer to the Tatra in sculpting style are the MPC's, the Marx lend the base!

Colour and moulding variations in the 54mm set from MPC, I don't know if they were in a multi-cavity mould or had a complete re-sculpt at some point, but the differences vary from slight to almost a new figure?

Comparison shots between all the sets, like I said: "...not much in it." really, the smaller MPC's are smaller, but on a battlefield not everyone is the same size and thanks to the sculpting style of most of the figures they go together well - I think? The Marx are undeniably more accurate in dress/equipment/webbing, but it's not noticeable in a group or when you're 12 and/or not an 'Army Brat'!

A is for Artillery...Big Guns, Cannons, Howitzers...

Not all of them by any means, but a sample of mostly small scale artillery from two photo-shoots I've done over the last 20-odd years. the bulk are scanned photographs from 20 years ago, the rest are rescued from my Imageshack account with a loss of resolution, and were taken about 10 years ago - the first time the collection was in storage!

At the top is the diminutive take on a British 5.5inch gun by EKO, which they did themselves as far as I can tell, there was no Rocco/Roskopf in the mix! Below it is the common Hong Kong take on another British stalwart, the 25lbr. Shield-less, this is a common enough HK piece turning up in various sets through the 1960's and early '70's.

Here we see the HK one again - this time with red wheels, and sharing the frame is a grey version of the Airfix first version gun. In this colour it's probably the latter Brumberger/T Cohn version and I cut the ears off thinking they were flash/blemishes, long before I knew what it was, so no 6x6 truck will pull it now; the designed way, so I've drilled a hitching-hole!

Below are the two later Airfix offerings, the 25lbr again and a German PaK 36 type? I painted the one on the left a lifetime ago, I'm not owning up to the gloss mud-puddle on the right!

At he back of the superscript shot is the matchstick-firing beast from Manurba, with it's eponymous little brother to the far right, and again badly painted behind on the subscript shot (missing it's firing 'pin'), in front of that is the Tudor Rose madeupname Mk.1, while the large pale-green one may be Hong Kong, but I favour South America or Spain from the styling and lack of HK mark.

Montaplex/BuM top and Atlantic bottom. We'll come back to the Atlantic again as they are among the more problematical sets in the 'Export' series, being designed for two different boxes, the staff in the packaging department (and/or subsequent dealers) not being able to tell them apart, they tend to end up in both boxes, but the contents lists are different but constant depending on which set they are...on the sprue/runner

Lump of very soft, home-cast, lead from roofing, shot-gun or Air-rifle pellets or fishing weights probably - at the top. Dinky 25lbr below, father of many copies! And the nearest the observer is interesting, it has all the hallmarks of a penny toy from between the wars, but has ethylene plastic wheels, these may have been stuffed-on to replace something older (people used to make and mend, not upgrade to landfill every 12 months!), or it may date it as a sixpenny-toy from the late 1950's?

Equally it could be entirely home-made, as the barrel is again a crude lump of lead, the wheels taken from another toy and the carriage cut from thin sheet tin.

Blue Box provide the polystyrene copy of a Crescent WWI Horse Artillery gun and the very simplistic die-cast is a late Matchbox effort.

The hard styrene gun below is from the Italian maker INGAP, and seems to have shades of 25lbr about it.

Three from Hong Kong, the on eon the left turns-up from time to time, but I've yet to tie-it down to a set or group of sets. The brown one on the other hand is or was common in the late 1970's and into the 1980's in cheap rack-toys. The Dinky copy was a bit earlier, but again - quite common in it's heyday.

We'll be looking at these more closely when (if) I ever finish the series on small scale copies of Britains and Crescent I started well over a year ago. I may well cut and paste the ones I've published into a new page and carry-on below them? There is a third design with a four-legged cruciform mount. All three carriages can be found with both guns.

Top are Marx and NFIC, while the bottom one I should know, well I do but I can't remember, one of the lesser US makes I think? Dom or Dom-for-Heinerle. We looked at the smaller Marx one the other day with it's barrel (a black-painted recoilless rifle looking thing), back when I took these I thought it must be some sort of towing bogie!

The one on the left is the remains of the - I think - Corgi die-cast with Tom the Cat, a poor TV/Cartoon tie-in [Tom & Jerry], but it may prove useful one day...maybe on the wall at the Alamo?

The two top right have previously been ascribed to Kinder in early German 'Eier Sammlerkatalog' (egg collector's check-lists), but I never went with that as they are too big for a standard Kinder capsule, and I don't think they are still in them (the checklists), worse though is that I'm sure I have their real origin somewhere, but can't find it, I seem to recall there is a third design though? Technolog boxed toy soldier sets! And there were several other designs and other siege equipment!

The little HK piece still in it's blister is probably the commonest design out there, originating at the tail-end of the 1940's with one of the early US plastics guys (Pyro, Thomas, Lido?) it was copied by most of the other pioneers, they then shared their moulds with various UK makers, Merit had a stab and Hong Kong producers spent 20 or 30 years copying all of them! It comes in every size from huge to this one and in hard, soft and various rubberised polymers and Merit gave some of theirs wooden wheels!

Saving the best to last (well they were the best when I was a dedicated small-scale collector!), these are mostly Hong Kong. We've looked at the multicoloured one - back-right - before (Lucky Clover), in front of it are three post-Giant copies of the old Marx ACW piece, each showing difference in wheels, barrel length, or detail and all probably from Christmas crackers.

The blue one is Eagle Games (I think? It's also on the Airfix blog's ACW Artillery post - I think), the black one is anybodies guess? Pirate-ship toy of some kind is the obvious best bet, but it could be a game playing piece? The other three are also Hong Kong.

T is for Two...from the Tiber

Continuing to clear these old photographs, or the scans of them, here are a couple of interesting and less common Hong Kong copies, both of ancients, and both around the 35/40mm mark.

Strategically placed on my home-made plasterboard hills (long since consigned to land-fill), these two are more 35mm and are copies of Marx figures originally from the 'Warriors of the World' hand-painted 60mm series, the chap on the right would also be copied by Giant in 25mil, while the same company put the torso of the left-hand guy on a horse. I think I have a couple more now, but possibly only one other pose (standing with spear) and always in this flesh-coloured plastic. I assume Christmas crackers or cake decorations?

This horn-bower is closer to 40mm and seems to be another of those European lollipop or ice-cream stick ornaments/premiums, but the hole is different from the Soldabar/Plasticom ones, and he probably originated in HK, he's a copy of the Elastolin Roman and might be a copy across from the 40mm or pantographed-down from the 70mm. He's also very distorted by early removal from the mould. Again I think I've picked-up another since these were taken so one day we'll probably have another look at them., with the commoner Elastolin copies with the oviod disc-shaped bases.

A is for At Last!

Ages and ages and ages ago I mentioned this, I can't even remember the context now, but somewhere on the blog I said something like "...like the kissing dolls I think we've already looked at...", well; I'm not sure we ever did - so here they are!

Two hard styrene plastic 'bobble-heads' with magnets in the foreheads, as you push them past each other they snog...giggle...giggle...! 'Lots of Fun'? I don't think so, but mildly amusing the first time...things were a little slower and more innocent (on the surface) back in the 1950/60's.

S is for Spiders Sir! 'Faasands of 'em!

Been rather knocked-out by Tonsillitis the last week or so, or rather the penicillin that came with it - as a two-for-one - courtesy of the NHS..well; I thought I'd better get my money's-worth before Cameron flogs it to his old school mates 'al la Royal Fail!

Plenty to post, just can't be arsed at the moment! So here's some arachnids for a change...

Aren't they lovely? Each is just over a millimetre, they were on a leaf in a park in Maidenhead back at the start of June, the mother was keeping her distance, I wonder if she was first thing on the coming-out party menu, they often are!

C is for Candles...Three Candles!

Weird...it doesn't seem to work...I'm sure that was funny the last time I heard it! No matter...do you remember when Tom Clague sent the picture of the GI Candles, well I picked these up sans box/liner the other month from a cake-decorations shop in Basingrad.

But I hadn't recognised them from last April's post, and the way they were stuffed into the tray and hidden at the back of an old-school glass display cabinet/counter unit, I thought they were resin like just about everything else in the store, so passed on them as a rather odd take on the Hong Kong clone thing, when she actually had all five.

Close-up of one of the figures, a nice jade green wax and assuming the wick runs down through one leg only, you could end-up with a rather macabre battle-casualty...'Stumpy'! Tag list says Noup Design, and you know they're Matchbox clones.

[Later the same night...]

I forgot I'd photographed another one a couple of days later...the platoon runner/signaller guy, with that wick he looks like a particularly evil gnome! "Oooozzzziii Neinnmilllimeeeeetterrrrr!"

N is for Natures Bounty!

I spent the afternoon rewarding myself for all that mud-puddling! And the bee-stings; 5 and counting this year, only 7 in the whole of last year, mowing is pretty-much out 'till they calm down a bit!

The blackcurrants were actually growing wild between the railway and the pond, someone tipped their garden-waste into the reeds in the dark - no doubt..there are lots of little ones, so a commando-raid in the autumn may well see us with a line of canes in the new year!

Also round the pond has been this chap (or chappess?), started life about 4 weeks ago, shorter that my little finger-nail and mistakable for a little bit of dried leaf, now the size of my thumb, and always easy to find as it hangs around on top of the hazelnut leaves, clearly birds have learnt a lesson there...leave well alone. Google tells me it's a Rusty Tussock-Moth.

Meanwhile when I first found these (there's a whole bunch of them) I wondered if they had a parasitic or fungal disease, but apparently they are meant to look like bird-lime! And while caterpillar-like, they are actually 'just' larvae; of a Saw-Fly.

T is for Tourney

Clearing-out/scanning old pictures, I came across these and thought they were fun, so low-res as they are I'm going to subject you to them...

Three Merten 40'mils, two Starlux and five Marx (30/35mm'ish) have a bash-about to 'Pax' or 'Yield' while five more Marx watch-on from the back, a mounted umpire (key-ring conversion) stands ready to intervene if the banter and joshing gets a bit heated!

The flat trees and shrubs are from a dozen or so makes including Cherilea, Jean, Manurba, and two Triang 'Battle Game' conversions, while I suspect the spray-painted one at the back left may have been rescued from a damaged snow-globe/shaker.

I'd also taken a photograph of the set-up for photography. These two were taken about the year 2000? You can see in the background I was supposed to be taking the pictures for the Giant Wild West articles for 1 Inch Warrior magazine, but clearly got distracted by shiny knights!

I would have been using an old 35mm Zenith with a macro lens and extension tubes.

That lamp was about 7-quid from IKEA, but it used to give me a splitting headache within minutes of being switched-on, which I suspect has something to do the the Asperger's as you wouldn't develop a bulb that resonated at a wavelength that gave NT's headaches; you'd never sell them, so it must be me!

Fond memories of the Old Holborn...on the 7th it will be a year since I started vapeing and I haven't had a 'fag' since.

P is for Peter Pan Playthings

When we looked at the MPC mini-planes a while ago, I mentioned briefly the 'rocket planes' in the other-makes round-up picture; last shot here. Well; synergy being what it is, they turned-up a few months later to explain the slot in their underside.

Found at Plastic Warrior' show in May, I tried to buy it but the owner had wandered-off and there was no price on it, so I just shot it for the archive! A pull-back, sprung-lever flic-fires the 'planes (I'd imagine with some force) across the carpet, possibly at an unsuspecting sibling...since known as 'one-eye'!

A reminder of the original three from my bag of bits. Two are marked Hong Kong and have crude stars on the wing-uppers, the third is unmarked, has smaller ailerons/tail-planes (?...horizontal/flat bits of the tail!) and cannon extending forward of the wing-tips, hinting at at-least two other makers of what was probably a common 'novelty' toy in the late 1950's.

I wouldn't be surprised to the learn the original was Thomas or Pyro, with moulds being shared to legitimate companies and the whole copied in HK by less legitimate ones!

P is for Proes; Promociones Especiales

Sorting out old photographs today, well scanning them and throwing the paper copies away, I keep the negatives, but eventually they'll be scanned in as well. Found these, they're a bit lower-resolution than you'll be used to, but they get the message across!

Easier to just give the blurb from the old book manuscript;

Proes
Promociones Especiales, Ediciones Anceo, Apartado 23029, Barcelona, Spain
Mid-1970’s?
Another Sobre (surprise) issuer, selling 30mm figures in little envelopes, probably with some gum or sweets. There may be a connection with a company called Grafic 3 SA, but I suspect they are just the designers/printers of the envelopes. The figures are based on the Marx 6-inch range and are of superior quality to the output of Montaplex/Hobbyplast and as stated; larger.
Known Sets
- Combate (copies of Dubkin-Mundi Japanese infantry)
- Grandes Jefes Indio (Indian Big-chiefs, Marx 6" copies)
- Le Barca de Noe (Noah's Ark, animals)
- Pistoleros Del Oeste (Western Gunfighters, Marx 6" copies)
- Soldados y Commandos (Commando Soldiers, copies of Dubkin-Mundi US infantry)

I suspect there is at least one figure missing from this bag, the Marx set was six poses, and the other set has five so one feels there should be 6, has any Spanish reader got these?

The other set, nice figures, but at 30mm they are hard to place with other products, they do sit well with Marx Miniature Masterpiece sets and the Blue Box/Marx Sunshine Series ethylene Britains copies. Again the Marx 6" originals were six poses, so there may be one missing, but I can't find them on the Sobre website/forum, so?

P is for Poundland, 99p Stores and so on...

Frankly I've begun to loose track of them, there is Poundland and Poundworld (get ready for Pounduniverse), where everything is a pound, then there's 99p Store, where everything is...err...99p, even though they've been bought-out by Poundland - except an in-depth investigation by the competition regulator has put everything on hold! Then there's another chain with '99p' in the title, one with '98p' in the title (or were they bought by 99p Stores?), and Poundstreatcher, where most things are more than a pound...doh!

Anyway, I tend to stick to the first two as several stores are local to me from both brands, and the items we're looking at today have mostly come from one or other of them, in the last 12 months.

The 'Combat' Bag of Soldiers from Poundland is an otherwise unbranded generic, with the same figures in a 99p Stores Army Group bag the same day, about a year ago.

They were so poor I shot them on the hanger and left them be! A few months later I shot the bag top right in case it was new (I can't remember everything in Picasa!), and although it wasn't, I noticed they'd added a helicopter or something (black lump?), but didn't focus on it.

I then picked-up the loose figures a few weeks ago in a mixed pile of something else!

The same 99p Stores 'Army Troop' brand, actually blamed on Top Toys of Northampton (whom I've previously suggested are an 'in-house' brand of 99p Stores), has more recently given up these three sets, the figures larger and a bit bloody crude really, but the vehicles...well, I thought they were worth the punt at £2.97p just to bring them to a wider audience, as they have potential...

Hopeless figures and the helicopters aren't much to write home about...in fact they're not much to write a blog about either! But...the attack heli, with a bit of a paint-job would be fine for old-school war gaming or futuristic role-play insertion mechanics!

The chinook/sea-knight thing doesn't even have matching rotor-blades, but again; pair pf replacement blades, or clear-sheet material discs, paint and a wash or dry-brush, would give you useful lift capacity for pennies.

These are where - I think - some of the war-gamers might show an interest? They are crude, a bit wacky and poorly painted, but they are also fun and usable. De-seam them, bit of filler, new paint scheme, cammo-nets/stowage and Bobs your uncle! The truck is particularly nice, I think - don't get me wrong, on one level it's the very worst kind of crap, but imagination only needs a nudge...again, dystopian near-future, or just old-school 'don't care - army builder, me!'...box ticked.

More shots of the vehicles, only one set had palm trees (standard generics) and the lookout tower in another set was really bad! Note the other MLRS chassis has a sort of FROG-SCUD thing! Well, it's better than a pair of giant Sparrow air-to-air missiles welded to the cab-roof!

The twin-cannon 'tank' is amusing as Bluebird produced one in their Zero Hour line a decade or two ago, and there is a twin-gun Pz,Kpfw. IV - in a similar style to these - kicking around, so you could build an alien army where all major-unit armour was twin-boom!

Then this brand reappeared in Poundland with new figures in half-empty boxes blamed on Funtastic, but; for only a pound? And I have a wide range of Matchbox clones so a purchase ensued!

I'll check the tag-list as Funtastic is starting to look like an in-house brand for Poundland? I know I've bought some elsewhere, but that could be explained by the laws of wholesale and clearance at the end of the market where both are already rock-bottom!

The three figure types (30 and 45mm approximately) looked at above, middle have been around for a while, the left had ones are in 99p Stores at the moment and the right-hand figures are recent to Poundland, but from tired 1980's moulds somewhere in China!

The truck is the third in what seems to be becoming an occasional series (we've looked at the hovercraft and M60 in the past) which goes back some years on the blog, I bought the first one in Poundland Newbury in 2009? 1:48th'ish and Funtastic.

While the Combat Force generics (around 54mm) are another really poor offering from the same store, and remain on the hanger!

Sometimes you see evidence of the strange phenomena with these discount store; they make their money by getting customers to buy things for a pound, or 99p or whatever, which are actually cheaper elsewhere, this is a case in point; The three majors (Tesco, Asda [Walmart] and Sainsbury's) sell these for 98p! I was suckered, Poundland got my extra two-pennies!

Matchbox Oshkosh M-ATV combat weapons platform/armoured reconnaissance, and not a bad little moulding of a piece of modern design. Is it not funny, indeed more ironic how service stuff is becoming indistinguishable from items found in Sci-Fi movies and games from only a few years ago...Avatar, Halo...I suspect Mike Creek will have given this a thorough grilling on his blog?

This cruder High & Drive casting (finger-cutting window frames!) is a 99p Stores bargain and with me having a s oft spot for Hummers the little gold coin had to be given-up in exchange! Supported by some Blue-Box for a sizing - it can't actually tow a trailer!

These are a question mark, more than a year old, came in a mixed lot from somewhere, but if I don't put them here, they'll never conform to Mr. Warhol's rule of '15'! Tank (old Matchbox-Airfix hybrid/copy) is about right for 15mm figures; 1:144 gaming?

And the only non-military in this post, still in Poundland as I type, these are for the LRG guys - about 40mm and still on the hangers, I'll get them as loose figures in mixed lots in a few years! Funtastic again.

G is for Gift Eggs and Capsule Toys - Part I - Last year or so...

Like gift horses...they sometimes have figures in, but won't sack your city or put everyone to the sword!

This one is very disappointing, unless you like stickers, fridge-magnets or jelly-beans...I like jelly beans so I was a third there, perusal of the sheet revealed that no matter how many you bought you would only have got a fridge magnet and a sticker! Which is why I only ever by one if the contents are unknown. This was from an independent sweet shop last Christmas, and they are probably still available from the Great Character Candy Company.

These packs of three are from the 99p Store chain, following the pattern of the original Kinder, they have the bonus of no sickly white-chocolate layer, made by Balaban Guida and imported into the UK by Gateway Sourcing, toys are a bit hit-and-miss, much like Kinder really!

Similar but not the same container as the Star Wars one, this was a bigger disappointment, a strange biscottii type thing, lenticular card and a basic rubber-disc pencil-topper! From Uno-Foods and/or Candy Planet out of Poland.

This was given to me at Plastic Warrior's 30th show in Richmond back in May by Peter Evans, he may have had it for a year or so, and it's from the Zaini family of chocolate eggs we've looked at before here somewhere. This is lovely, a dynamic pose being achieved by skirting the undercut problem with multiple clip-together parts. There are three other stand alone figures in the set and five looped for use as danglers, key-rings or charms.

They (Zàini) are currently doing a set of Frozen characters - see next post (below).