If you're going to cover the copies, you'd better look at the originals first! Trouble is, most of mine are in storage at the moment, but some have come-in which we'll look at below, but you can do no better than pop over to Dave Keen's site and check out the
Lone Star page there.
There were actually two versions of the
Lone Star figures, and the two sets of piracies below (so far discovered!). The first version are the chalky (and now very frangible) matt-painted milk-chocolate brown ones. They then issued them in a glossier plastic (with no chalk - for paint - additive), with the addition of bases for the horse.
Now, with no evidence whatsoever, I'm going to suggest they were issued as some kind of premiums in this second guise. The reason for which is that while seemingly rarer than the brown ones, when they turn-up, they turn up as a set of six. Recently the above complete pose-set of cowboys came in, years ago I found a complete set of Indians which are in storage - although they may have featured in
One Inch Warrior magazine?
Anyway, it's a coincidence worth noting and I wonder if they were issued in their 6's as either a pack of Cowboys or a pack of Indians with cereal or biscuits or something...petrol? The Indian's horse was also fitted with a base (needing it more the the cowboys), the set was also in the same red plastic.
For the longest time I thought only the mounted figures had been copied, as Christmas cracker or vending prizes, but you can see two foot figures in the upper image (and there are a few more in storage), however the handful (8/10) of foot figures I poses are mostly in the same jade green as the blood-spattered figure above, with a couple of yellow ones, while I have dozens of the mounted figures, none in the same colour.
So it seems that the figures didn't last for long (possibly as a carded/bagged rack-toy set), but the horsemen were issued for years, where I can attest they came in cheap/budget crepe-paper
Tom Smith crackers.
Originals on the left, cracker toys on the right, and the
100 Figure Set's examples in the middle, they are clearly copies-of-copies, with very poor sculpting and detail. Speaking of the
100 Figures Sets which we
looked at here...
..some more colours have turned-up! Which helps explain how I ended-up with 48 of 50, it must have been a bit chaotic in the factory mid-batch change, trying to get 50 of each on the card with more than two colours kicking around in various tubs or stillages!
