Actually; Supreme Products or Supreme
Toys but using SP in the 1990's,
like a lot of the older Hong Kong companies (they were formed in 1974), we know
little of Supreme or their output, as
it was mostly contract manufactured for third parties.
But from the late 1980's they did (like Soma - another older company) start to
mark some stuff (mostly packaging) so that it was ID'abl at the point of sale,
allowing us to ID other stuff by default, even though A) not everything they produced
and/or marketed followed the 'pattern' and B) even today they don't always mark
their stuff!
Case in point is this 'shelfie' I shot in
Basingrad last Friday, these are a reissue of Supreme's first version (mid-late 1970's) knights, marked-up to Halsall's rack-toy brand My Toy - Time4toys, new paint (compost-green
shields over a silver wash) but otherwise unmistakeable.
In a few weeks (when the budget is
healthier) I'll get the set and we'll have a quick look at it in close up, as a
stand-alone.
I hope everyone is familiar with these (as
this is all I've got - and all I want really!), Supreme's second attempt at
knights, trying to compete with the action figure market/craze of the post-Star Wars 1980's, they were chunky, too
large and produced in red, black and blue vinyl-rubber with gold and silver
highlights, over-sized polyethylene weapons and similarly huge shields with
stickers struggling to obey the rules of heraldry only added to the action
figure look. Not to mention the Greco-Roman archer with leg-armour!
In recent years they (Supreme) have issued two newer sets of medieval figures (both
pirating other makers stuff - Italieri
for instance), along with Saracens for them to fight. However, they themselves
have been subject to much piracy, and due to the 'back-door' nature of a lot of
piracy in the Far East some of the 3 version figures have ended-up with the 1st
version!
And due to my coming late to the collecting
of large scale examples, while we're going to look primarily at those early
ones, we will be mostly looking at the copies here today! The above being all Italieri sculpts/poses - from the
current 3rd/4th 'sets' except the silver one (middle bottom) who's from one of
the 3rd generation sub-pirate sets.
Both Supreme
and its imitators have issued these in various sizes over the years and we have
looked at the 25mm Blackrock Castle
set donated to the Blog by Brian Berke before, next to it we see 30mm and 45mm
versions, both unpainted, with the 30mm probably being Supreme (nice detail, PVC) and the 45mm a late pirate brand, in
ethylene.
As can be seen from the artwork on the
card, painted versions are available and I have some 25mm versions in a
boxed-set of the castle which I thought was on the Blog somewhere, but can't
find it so it may be poorly tagged; tags/tagging rather evolved as the Blog
grew! Found it, which means it's in the attic . . . somewhere - it's the Guildford-bought one which is still missing; in storage!
Here we see the standard copies in 50mm
(the 'action figure' rubber-uglies are 60/70mm) from at least two
origins/sources, of which I'm sure one is Hing
Fat, but can't find the reference, so will leave them off the tag-list for
the time-being, but you can see the difference in the bases, likewise Applause may have issued some!
Another pose and we have 30, 45 and 50mm
and again the late or 3rd generation copies are less accurate, having been
re-cut, or mucked-about with! Also 'again' the only actual Supreme in the shot is likely to be the 30mm PVC chap!
Another pose and again the 45mm is derivative
rather than a straight piracy, but only insofar as he has elements of other
figures from the same original set, tacked-on or swapped.
Ditto, but showing the difference in base
shape - between two generations of copy - clearly, suspected Hing Fat on the left.
I shot him so I'm posting him, even though
this is supposed to be a post about the foot figures. The 30mm version and an
unmistakeable Supreme horse with a splash of paint; the mounted figures get the
huge weapons scaled down to still look over-sized in their diminutive
ring-hands.
Contents of the whole tub shot together,
although there are some painted ones still to go in it, they too, are probably
copies - we looked at them before but I can't find the post (what am I like!) and I have more of the small scale (25 and
30mm) in storage, which we will come back too with all the forts - one day!
Note also that some of these - otherwise
quite recent - black ones are getting brittle and will soon be no more than
landfill
These have been sitting in Picasa for so
long I'm happy to get rid of them! They were shot when the contents of the tub
included a few 'similar' types and so included here are Jean'esque (foot, oval cartouche base, missing pole-arm) and Timpo'esque (mounted, shield sticker) figures now in another tub .
. . ironically enough, the one with the four Supreme rubber-loons in it, as they won't fit in this one!
