B is for Bluebird Toys - An Overview

So - Bluebird Toys (UK) Ltd Huh? They came, they made, they went! And contributed more to the small scale world in their short time than much bigger, longer lived companies...or did they really?

The 1997 Argos catalogue page annoncing the launch/availability of Havok.

Bluebird were formed in 1980 by Torquil Norman who was an old Model Toys man ( Berwick-Timpo owned), and one has to assume he had ideas about how to do things differently in a new decade with new mores. He started well with a 'Big Yellow Teapot' pre-school toy and other 'activity' toys for tots, and the company got off to a flying start.

Zero Hour catalogue pages from 1990 & 1992

However, all was not rosy in the garden and the company seems to have grown too fast, cash flow tightened and within ten years it was struggling. The answer was Polly Pocket, which quickly became very successful and refilled the companies coffers, she was then joined by Mighty Max, who sadly only lasted about 4 years. However Polly wasn't necessarily a Bluebird invention, she was licenced from a company called Origin Products Limited, possibly a wholly owned subsidiary?. Google gives about three 'Origins', one making trouser-presses in the Far East, a group of engineers in London and a dead homepage, so no clarity there!

Manta Force and Viper Squad pages from the 1990 catalogue.

A look at the acknowledgements 'small print' on the back of a late catalogue shows that - in fact - all the products being issued by Bluebird have dues to another source. The Manta Force, for instance was in the Tomy stable.

The fact that Hasbro have bought Mattel (a long time partner and eventual purchaser of Bluebird) while Takara and Tomy have married doesn't help with the research, this was all happening at the start of the 'modern' period of toy production where Tomy will re-use Starriors as RATS and use the cockpits on some Zoids while issuing separate licences to Hasbro and Kenner! It's all about quick profit, quick turnaround, making moulds pay and shovelling the residue to clearance houses for repackaging in Spain, Mexico or the souks of Istanbul.

If you go to the London Toy Fair regularly you'll know that companies come and go so fast, seem to grow and then disappear, or turn out to be no more than a brand or trade mark with a separate stand, it's hard to know who's what, and they're not that interested in the customer either. "The Customers Always Right" has become the customer will buy what we present to them or what we present to the kids until they pester the customer to see things our way!

So we find that Kenner/Parker, Fredrick Warne, BBC Enterprises, Tomy, DC Comics, Disney, Lewis Galoob and others were all getting a slice of the Bluebird pie.

Clockwise from top right; Polly pocket Catalogue page; 40mm Prince Charmings (?); and a Batman card.

In the end - which came at the end of 1997 - Mattel won a bidding war and bought their old trading partner and moved production to the US, swallowing Galoob as well...just before Hasbro swallowed the lot!

Mr Norman? Well, 'Sir' Norman went off to spend a lot of money on a theatre, which might help the more cynical among us (Me Sir! Me!) understand who was behind Origin Products? Note; Mattel are still crediting an Origin on the PP website...

Z is for Zero Hour by Bluebird Toy (Code Zero in the US)

So let's look at the most useful series for small scale enthusiasts, the Zero Hour range of futuristic/post apocalyptic rubber men! Good guys, bad guys and big tanks, what more could you want. And some of the figures/accessories are really quite useful for fantasy/sci-fi war gaming.

A shot of various figures from various sets, unlike the Havok range below (tied-in to Argos), these had a wider release and were available in Toy-R-Us, where I passed on the chance of a complete set as they were hideously expensive!

The Green row are a colour variation only available in the Supreme Headquarters Super Monorail Set (Groundhog Marine commandos), the figures more usually in shades of brown as Army Wolf Pack.

Group shot of the Bad Brigade set with a tatty old UAV Tour Bus also available in the big monorail play set. Most sets not only cost a lot, but contained an inordinate number of seated figures!

The big tank!

Some other stuff, you get the picture, lots of play value, not much imagination needed, everything has a back story, real 'modern' toys. The two grey figures are as yet unidentified, being from neither the figure sets nor the big play-set.

These were issued/carried in the US by Mattel where they were known as Code Zero, so assume re-packaging? These seem to have been Bluebird originals, and I don't know if the ranges differed, however V. Rudick's One Inch Army book is short four figure sets and a number of accessories so I guess Mattel didn't market the full range across the pond?

P is for Polly Pocket (and Mighty Max) by Bluebird Toys

Mighty Max followed the success of Polly pocket and was clearly aimed at the male members of the household, in little (and bigger playsets) fold away pocket sized mini-sets, usually containing one MM figure and one or two 'interaction' pieces, a monster and a piece of equipment, they followed the model forged by PP.

I don't really collect these, and although they do turn up in job-lots, I don't keep the playsets, so can only show them by year, these are all marked 1992.

This is the 1994 marked batch, with a bigger accessory or two, the guy top left looks like one of the 'Small Soldier' characters, and with Bluebird working with Galoob at one point, it may be from another product range?

Upper photo shows the 1993 marked figures from MM, again with the 'Small Soldier' lookie-likey, below them is what little Polly Pocket has come in over the last 20 years and YES, it is too much! [Still no duck - you know who you are!]

Undated BBT (Bluebird Toys) figures

M is for Manta Force (and Viper Squad) by Bluebird Toys (and Tomy Toys)

The oddest range I have from Bluebird is the Manta Force, only two (or three? see note on yellow figure) poses, in a few colours, and three distinct ranges of vehicles/accessories, very good ones which I think originate with Tomy, the Karnoid stuff which is of a completely different and poorer quality and some stuff in the 1990 catalogue which may never have been made here or in Japan?

Manta figures, the Gold one only came in a couple of sets and consequently as I don't actively search these things out I only have a pair of (broken) legs!

The yellow guy on the bottom row with the Pharaoh headdress is not visible in any catalogue photographs, so may be a late issue, or some body else's from some other range all together? (Terrahawks?) He is in fact from the Silverlit Multimac toys (Thanks to Bill Bulloch over at the Moonbase Central).

One of the early accessories, the build quality of this is very good and both the material and colours are reminiscent of some Ultraman or Gundam stuff from Japan.

Another from the same initial release, this used the good old 1950's toy cannon mechanism to fire 6 rockets at once, very safe, blunt rockets mind, this was the nineties!

Both Viper figures.

H is for Havok by Bluebird Toys, Skirmish Battle Set

In 1997 Bluebird produced what could have been a real runner against Games Workshop, however they managed to tie the launch in to the UK 'Catalogue Shopping' chain Argos, which rather stunted the child at birth! The initial release was a starter box called 'Skirmish Battle Set' (Argos Cat.No. 307/0338), this was accompanied by two other releases; The 'Karn Banshee Attack Thopters (307/0338) and; 307/0008 a couple of 3 figure sets, however due to the vagaries of Argos stock-control the two sets were random, so army building with any sense of order was a nightmare!

Front and back of the box.

Figures included in the Skirmish set were at the back left; 3x 47th Line troopers of the Nexus and a 'Hundred [Form]' warrior (in front - green), front right; 3 'Darkest Suns' and behind them - in rust brown - a 'Form' warrior, from the Karn Empire.

The 'Form's' that each Form-warrior stays close to, large, simple robots with some parts in common and with the back-flags - a nod to the Samurai, something else that GW mine with much enthusiasm...there's nothing new under the sun, even the Darkest Sun!

The basic scenery, note the early computer graphics, there is no care in the design of these, no love, if you are going to print and die-cut a sheet of card, why not do it properly? The cost is in the card (and shipping) not the ink and has been since the 70's.

Army building allowed for a third 'side' the Pteravore, similar to GW's Tyranids, or H.R. Geiger's Alien, it's all recycled!

H is for Havok by Bluebird Toys, Figures & Figure Sets

This is how they came from Argos, two random packets, in this case Nexus Tribunes and Pteravore Razors.

Here we see most of the units fielded by the Nexus, less those shown in the previous post. Front L-R are three members of the Brotherhood and - baseless - a Doomguard. Middle row shows the three Kinsmen and three Nexus Troopers, sans bases. The rear row has the Tribunes on the left and Assault Troops on the right.

The Nexus were supposed to get two larger vehicles; a Mauler light-attack tank and a Hammer heavy-assault tank, I don't believe either ever made it to market? The Hammer sharing a code number (N-09) with the Storm-trooper set, it's a fair bet they weren't issued either!

The Karn present themselves, again from to back, Left to right; Klan Warriors, two un-based Kai-unes and three Karn Troopers with behind them; a set of Borkian Mercenaries and two Suma-kai, again without bases.

Most sets have 'detailing' stickers on weapons, shields or - in this case - wings, these seem to have been applied before final sale to end-user. The karn also have 'lost' units; Glaive Riders (share a code with the Banshee Thopters) and Heavy Weapons.

Final Army/Race was the Pteravore, and the only set I've found are the Razors. Two further sets had army/points cards included in the battle set; P-02 'Screamers' and P-03 'Hell Hounds', I suspect that they were never issued.

Inset photo shows the base types/designs I've yet to identify/allocate to a specific set, and any help given with be gratefully received/acknowledged.

I've managed to identify some bases from the two mint sets and the play-set, most of the rest are around 70% sure, the baseless ones are probably those in the inset, as to the green ones? The stickers were placed in the factory, so both the green ones and some black ones I have without bases might be for the 'Thopters' or something?

Note; Because some other sets share numbers, it may be that those figures with a vehicle code accompanied that vehicle (packaging-wise?) or were destined to?

A is for AT-AT and AT-ST from Galoob, Kenner, Hasbro

I'm not some Klingon learning died-in-the-wool sci-fi fanatic, but I do have a soft spot for the "Increasingly inaccurately named" (to quote Douglas Adams) Star Wars Trilogy, and like most aficionados; The second film (The Empire Strikes Back) with it's set piece arctic battle on the frozen ice-planet 'Hoth'.

The AT-AT is the main mode of transport for the ground troops, a sort of mechanical horse/APC, and here are the three main versions of the 'Action Fleet' AT-AT. On the left is the first issue, then a motorised version (which needs the flattest of surfaces to move an inch!) which was by Tiger Electronics - if memory serves. Finally the re-issue by Hasbro with it's daft snow 'weathering'.

One of the Micro-Machine play-sets by Galoob had this 'dead' AT-AT, I've cut a couple out and given them a bit of work. The one on the left is a work in progress, the one on the right is as good as finished. I had to pare-down the blobs of snow that were all over them, and with the earlier one went on to fill some of the seams on the roof, I wish I hadn't now, but like tanks today, there would be many variants, so; hey ho!

Galoob 'Walker' behind, with the Tombola 'prize-egg' premium in front. Sandwiched between the two is the Pizza-Hut premium.


In the final film (The Return of the Jedi) we met AT-ST's, smaller two-man reconnaissance 'Walkers', and it's likely a few of them would have been operating as a screening force on the flanks of the main snow troop attack. Indeed, I think George Lucas retro-fitted a AT-ST into the re-mastered version of the original Star Wars movie during the huge hype when the new films were announced and various boxed sets of the old films were issued on VHS, just as it became obsolete. Lucas may be a good film maker, but he's far better at getting the pounds out of peoples pockets

In front of the Action Fleet ST, is the standard Micro-Machine version, and the two Micro-Machine AT-AT's to the right. One of the things I hate about these series are the complete inconsistency of scale, adherence to scale or compatibility. It's visually OK to use the wider range of figures in the Micro-Machine range with the Action Fleet vehicles, but for a realistic AT-AT you would have to use the 6" Palitoy/Hasbro Action figure AT-AT for true accuracy, remember the Land Speeders flew among the legs of these things.

Or...You could get the far more accurate Wizards of the Coast AT-AT, but get a credit card first, you'll need it, And that range is for another day!

Z is for Zoo Brix by Airfix

I fell off a ladder the other day so - as our Antipodean friends would say - I'm a bit crock at the moment, I'm also taking photo's and researching a multiple post, so it's more archive tonight I'm afraid, these were among the first toys made by the then household goods producer; Airfix Products Ltd.

They rattle, they float, they build AND they've got a small animal inside! Bargain, I'll have a dozen gross for whatever guineas you're asking!

The box end tells us there were three assortments, and this box has assortment 'A', these are the same animals as were issued on header cards, but with flat bases, anyone wanting to see the others should subscribe to Plastic Warrior Magazine (link to right), as a little bird tells me they will be featured there in the near future.

With a British Paratrooper to gauge size here are the animals, I haven't got the full hang of the Collage feature in Picasa yet so it kept cutting off bits of the animals, so the Rhino and Kangaroo suffer slightly from camera shyness here!

W is for Waterloo at Haldane Place!

What with the apparent demise of Eric Williamson's website, I guess some out there will be needing an occasional 'fix' of Airfix to feed their 'Box Type' habit....

Prussian Infantry; the three 'Corner-edged graphic' box types, and colour variants of the 'Long' box French Infantry.

Highland Infantry get laid low by a small bug that went around.

Clockwise from top left; Distribution of ponies in the French Artillery; 1st version of the 'Blue' box; two variations of the 3rd 'Window' version Blue box; 2nd 'Black-end' version of the same 'Blue' box.

Comparison between one of the Arab horses on the left, the British Grenadier Officers horse in the middle and the French Infantry Officers horse on the right. Note how the foot pegs get bigger as subsequent generations of Machinists/Engravers/Tool-men get hold of the original!

This last picture and the Artillery horse one is designed to help people check sets as 'original contents', too many dealers will chuck any old thing in a box.

C is for Culpitt's Cake Decorations of Cowboys and Indians

Going through the archive for 'lazy-post' last night I found this, which was going to be my next post when the Laptop crashed back in April, so here it is!

Sold by Culpitt's in the UK, these were made in Hong Kong, first with separate bases and 8 (?) poses, then with moulded on bases and only 4 poses. The "8 (?)" is because there seems to be an Indian missing, this may be because he/she is actually an it! I.E. it may be a Tee-pee, camp fire or Totem pole. in which case it's somewhere else in the collection (I hope!), does anybody know who/what the missing 8th piece is...if it's missing.

Other rows/columns are colour variants. The based ones are quite common, the older one's are getting harder to find. [These were produced/issued in Portugal in cans of Toddy chocolate powder, thanks to Jorge Freitas for that, see; Comments.]

B is for Bit and Pieces

Another lazy post, a few more images from the archive, time waits for no man and I've been doing other things today!

First up a couple of 40mm Elastolin Roman Cavalry, my favorite sculpts from this manufacturer, no matter how 'inaccurate' the rivet counters may hold them, they were toys - in their day - and bloody good ones!

Montaplex Sioux Indians from Spain, the packet looking as old as it is, the figure sprues looking like they left a plastics factory in Kent at six o'clock this morning! Airfix piracy's of course!

Hong Kong Bendy Toys of Cowboys and Indians, these are about 60mm, and were sold flattish, to get them all in the box.

Hat variations on the Britains 'Detail' Royal Canadian Mounted police (RCMP).

Happy New Year

A bunch of white doves clearing up after a load of straw has left the stack yard this afternoon.

B is for Beachead - Hong Kong Style, Part 1 - Beach Head Assault

As promised yesterday evening - a closer look at the Beach Head Assault sets from Hong Kong makers and some linked bits and pieces (second post - below)

This is the set I looked at the other night, figures are close to H0/00 and quite well detailed, bunker is basically the Giant copy of the Marx pillbox.

The same set, this time however it has had Byra Products overprinted and one lot of troops (the 'Enemy') have been replaced by the Airfix copies usually found in lucky-bags and cheap Christmas Crackers.

We then have 'Set Number 273' again in two slightly different versions, and this shows well how the HK manufacturers would plagiarise each other as happily as they would copy western producers. Although these look the same, they are in fact smaller, have new artwork (with one differing greatly from the other; planes...) and have slightly different contents, both from each other and the preceding sets.

These are later sets with poorer quality figures, to the Britains copies have now been added copies of the Crescent Desert Infantry. The left hand set is probably the earlier (closer to the original artwork, better detail to the armoured cars and planes), while the one on the right is the copy of a copy of copies!

The Haglon/Hagemeyer set is closer to the first two in style, contents and card size, but has the poor quality figures of the two above sets so I've placed it here in the 'hierarchy' of card types. Note also it's numbered 272 a digit below the above two sets, so there will be a connection lost in the mists of time, and it may be this set slightly predates them?

As so much HK stuff has 3 or 4-digit numbers, I suspect the numbers pertain to contracts rather than stock numbers, or; some do at least!!?!

Thanks must go to James Opie for this and all Hong Kong articles as his generousity in the past pretty-much doubled my HK collection at a stroke.

B is for Beachead - Hong Kong Style, Part 2 - Beach Head Invasion etc...

Continuing where I left off above and starting with a comparison shot between the set they were all pretending to be (Airfix Beach-Head Invasion Set) and the various pretenders.

The reason the big Airfix sets are so uncommon is twofold, first; big ticket items don't last, they get caught up in house fires and clear-outs in a way little carded stocking-fillers left at the back of the 'secret' drawer don't (the water marks on this one are from the summer floods of 2007, not some calamity of the 1960's), the other reason is simply that not many sell to begin with, if you're a parent sent - by Santa - to purchase "...a big landing set like Timmy down the road." are you going to spend 2 pounds, thirteen shillings and sixpence on the Airfix set...or...2/11d on one of the carded Hong Kong sets?
Contents are similar to the earlier 'Assault' sets, but title differs and graphics are all new. However we are back to the H0/00 reasonable quality copies of Britains Lilliput only. The bunker is the most accurate copy of the Marx original having only two slits and the protected doorway (usually filled in, or no more than a bump on these HK copies).

The Jungle set is clearly from the same series as the above, set in Vietnam and selling for 3/11d in 1967. A fine example of why you should leave cities for idiots to live in...it's a whole shilling more than the Byra set was selling for in Andover the same year!!

This set was bought in Chelsea, the same year, also for 3/11d, at least you get more with this set! The barbed-wire is marked "GIANT (P) HONG KONG" yet this is clearly not from the Giant stable, only helping to muddy the water if you study Giant! Compare the bunker here with the previous sets, three slits (one designed for archers!) and no doorway.

An attempt at the earlier artworks, this is a late 1960's set with poor copies of the Blue Box and/or Triang Space Commando figures.