About Me

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I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Hans Postler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hans Postler. Show all posts

Tuesday 11 July 2017

Birds of a Feather are Manufactured Together - in the Far East

Apropos a spat elsewhere in the Small Scale World family of Blogs, Amscan were raised recently, we don't want that crap here, but as I haven't posted here for a while this is a timely post illustrating why we will never know the whole truth on Hong Gong production between 1946/7 and at least the Mid-1990's, although much that appears to be factual today is only made-up brands for Alibaba wholesale or evilBay/Amazon retail sell-through.

On the left are two Amscan sets with slightly different contents bought on a steamy-hot day in the summer of 1994, from one of the many discount stores within walking distance of Clapham Junction station's main entrance.

Were they made by Amscan? Of course not! Next to them are three other sets with identical/near identical contents of the same 'Airfix type three' figures (we will look at all this in greater detail another day, this post is about packaging and contract manufacture!), for the Canadian and Italian markets, and; as can be seen from the duel-language graphics of the Amscan sets, they too were intended for Canada (or France?) as well as the UK.

Note also: the dimension-data panel on the 'HK' set is remarkably similar to panels used by or seen on Jaru and Gordy packaging (off the top of my head - there are others), one day this may prove to be a Hong Kong factory tie-in clue?

In France and Germany you were more likely to encounter them in Hans Postler's 'HP' packaging which varied. We see here three versions, the early ones without the CE mark can be dated to pre-1992 (at a guess!), then a CE'ed version and finally a larger carded blister more in line with the set in the previous image.

All the CE marks in both images don't conform to the CE mark rules, which means that they are almost certainly forgeries; to whit - the manufacturer in Hong Kong added them without the relevant permission (or full knowledge of the CE graphic's rules) and the importers turned a blind eye to the fact without being in possession of the relevant certification; a situation which has improved greatly, over the intervening 25-odd years.

The Hans Postler 'earlies' carry artwork from these generics, dated to the early 1980's (a couple of the non-CE cards above carry clues dating then to '84'ish), and here again I don't have a large enough sample to know whether this is six-of-six, six-of-more or one or two from three series?

For instance, one of the Han Postler bags hints at a missing US set, while my US set is in a card trying very hard to pretend it is the card seen below. Matching graphics/same font on the first two of each row seems to point to two series, while the German set doesn't match either pair convincingly.

I suspect they are five-of-six with a missing US Infantry one carrying a fuller version of the HP card's artwork and the one bottom right above is an interim set? The Para's card seems to have employed Action Man (GI Joe) as an artist's model! While shades of Airfix artwork are in the other four, the last one however - as I said - is (with the addition of a dodgy NATO symbol) trying to be this one . . .

. . . which dates from the 1970's and contains ex-Giant factory-clearance, but no mention of Giant, Arco or Sarco or even Mattel or the Rosenberg's  anywhere, in point of fact; a totally blank, generic, rack toy.

Listing

2MacDue SRL (Italy)
Amscan Inc. (Canada, Mexico, UK and USA + others?)
Generics (early - Giant-clearance knock-off artwork and contents)
Generics (later - 3/4 packaging-artwork variations)
Hans Postler GmbH / HP (2/3 packaging variations, Germany and France)
Hong Kong Toy Exporters / HK (for 2MacDue, Hong Kong, China etc...)
'N' (Italy)
Toys and Wheels (Canada)

This list is NOT exhaustive, just what I've found so far. My 'Airfix type three' is the second size of solid, flat based Airfix copies with sharp edges for those of you who have sorted these, they were all explained in the One Inch Warrior magazine article on the Japanese, and I will do something fuller here - soon; now we’ve started to cover them!

===============================================================

But is it Giant

The last one has Giant contents, but it isn't 'Giant', the rest aren't even Amscan (the subject of the spat elsewhere), they aren't any of the brandings they wear, they probably aren't even Hong Kong Exporters (but they might all be - with the exception of the last one), they are however; all contract-manufactured ex-Airfix sculpts pirated and made in Hong Kong and flogged as pocket-money toys from wire-peg racks and revolving dollar-trees.

Actually the Amscan were being flogged from their shipping-outers on the floor! I went through about 80 sets in two cartons to make sure there was only the two variations in contents!

There is the possibility of a mould move to China 'proper' by the time of the issuing of the fake CE versions, but the figures may have been sitting (in the '90's) bagged, in large, stacked, metal-stillages in an HK warehouse waiting (from the '80's production run) for sales-contracts to be found/fulfilled.