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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.

Tuesday 10 August 2021

Golden Trojans - The Non-Giant Gold Plastic Greco-Roman Figures

Looking at the various rack-toy sets, in the small scale, rack-toy universe, manufactured in golden polymers and ostensibly of 'Romans' most of whom are actually copied from Britains Trojans, who were themselves sculpted as Classical Greeks, albeit with a cloned Marx Roman or two in the mix for good measure!

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
Sorting sets and scanning images to get some order to this post I actually found a third fort type which may-or-may-not be connected to the third figure type (later in the post), so there may be four generations of 'stuff' here?

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
We've looked at the Lucky Clover branded sets before, so a bit of a reprise, but we're comparing today. Packaging of the No 6646 / 9 Tower Fortress With Soldiers is best described as '1950's gift chocolates', with a pull-off lid and tray holding the contents, viewable though the large window.

Two pinches of figures making half a handful (heay, at some point in the past I'm sure these were official units of measure!), a two-horse, articulated, chariot and the standard Hong Kong fort in 17 pieces with the 'oriental' turret-roofs.

You can see this one is annotated in James Opie's hand as having been purchased in Layton (I suspect East London rather than Blackpool?), in August 1969, which means these other sets were coming out as Giant faded away, and were partly responsible for that fade; if you saturate a market, the early leader will lose out for being over-extended or over-invested in a diminishing return. And note the instructions for the Wild West Fort Cheyenne are included on a generic tray designed for all the Lucky Clover sets.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
Four pinches making two half-handfuls! You can see there is little attempt at a fair sample or equal distribution of the figure poses, with one getting only four of the six available poses, the other scraping-in with five. They would have been jumbled up in a big skillage somewhere in the corner of the warehouse and fed to smaller stock, component or tote boxes on each packer's bench. Obviously aiming at six figures per pocket, one got seven.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
The Lucky Clover chariots; mentioned before, there seem to be four types, two-horsed (Biga) or four (Quadriga) and more generally (more widely within all these type of rack-toys) can be found articulated or rigid, the articulated ones survive better, the rigid ones tending to brake where the drawbar/centre-pole meets the body of the chariot.

The horse is a very good example of what I call 'Mexican' and is as good as anything Giant carried, but these - and their attendant chariots - are unmarked.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
Fish-scale flags plug-in to the 'oriental' turrets, I call them that to differentiate from the round-cone roof pieces of other forts in this family of similar rack-toy forts, the design can be found throughout Europe, so isn't really Oriental, but, well, that’s why that is . . . ! One set gets contrasting jade-green flags (pennants?), the other matching red.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
The fort sections are marked (in contrast to the chariots/horses) with a heavy HONG KONG in a rough, capitalised, sans-serif font, twice; above the 'gate-house' and below the left-hand walk-way (arrowed).

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
Fully assembled and to the untrained eye identical to a Giant fort, the seventeen pieces assemble into a fort with roughly the same footprint as the concurrent Airfix (and other) forts, that is: eight-inches by eight-inches on the sides, but lacking the sophistication, or height of those domestic models.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
The other relatively clear type to identify - No. 445 Roman Fortress - is quite common, and can be found as a generic (top) or over-printed to the Woolbro brand (bottom). Artwork (which shows the round turret-roofs on the front of the card) rather dates this to post-1960's-psychedelia, and more toward the simpler 'comic' graphics and block-colours of Glam-Rock, Habitat and Mary Quant, so early 1970's? Which makes them the second of these, but - as always with this stuff - it's not that simple!

Also - as both generics and under Woolbro - sister sets of Astronauts, Khaki Infantry (with the 1-ton Humber mini-trucks) and a 'Fort Cheyenne' (all stock-coded '445') were issued in a fuller 'line'. I have a Gordy International Wild West set (and a generic), so they (Gordy) may have issued this - Roman set - on the other side of The Pond?

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
Obviously aping the Lucky Clover set, or a later version from the same source (we will probably never know), they are the same black polyethylene with red fittings (including pennants), no markings though and you can see the mould is tired with damage 'dinks' to the flat surfaces, but it makes it easy to ID lose ones as there's no mistaking the eight or so 'pimples' on the back of the gatehouse, and the long diagonal scartch to the right - clearly they only had the one tool/cavity.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
But I have parts of an interim/different one; yellow fittings (but no firm idea as to turret tops or pennants), high-quality moulding with very smooth walls, none of Lucky's markings, none of Woolbro's dinks.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
However, the three walls are roughest of the lot and marked - similar to Lucky Clover's front-piece - but with a full MADE IN HONG KONG in a slightly smaller font.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
A few recent bits (the fort from Tony among them) were added after this shot was taken, and while I've numbered them, and seem to have photographed them the wrong way round, there is no real significance to the numbering and '2' could be the oldest or the newest, also - as we'll see with the figures in a minute - may be the third or a forth 'type'? What I am sure about is that the Lucky Clover sets pre-date the Woolbro/generic Roman Fortress sets.

And I don't want to be seen to be 'showing off' here, I'm showing you the vague size of the sample so you can gauge the veracity or fallacy of the blurb for yourself , I'd hate to be thought to be the type to make it up as I go along, like some peep's around here!

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;

So, to the figures; as the forts are all black, so the figures are all gold, but differences - when you look - are marked and plenty, all are poorer than Giant originals, who we will look at another time.

The top row are Lucky Clover, all six of the Giant poses, below them are a row of Woolbro/generics, they are almost smooth, detail wise, and only seem to have used five of the original six poses.

Below that are some OBE's from an unknown artist of yesteryear and a single survivor of my Greco-Romano-Trojan-Macedonian-Carthaginian army! I gave them gun-metal cuirasses . . . can you imagine going to war in a wrought-iron bell-cuirass!

The bottom row are the 'turd on the snooker-table' of this otherwise quite clean ID'ing exercise, as they are a third type, closer to the Giant originals and coming independently from the 'interim' fort, so not necessarily going with it at all? And a six-pose count.

As well as the gold plastic rule and the black forts rule, the other rule which unites this branch of the tree is that none of these have been associated with mounted figures, indeed the inclusion of the unknown set is because they came without mounted figures in a clean sample, they haven't been linked to a black fort per se.

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
Bases; The interlopers (middle) have a Giant-like MADE IN HONG KONG in a neat DIN-font, which extends over the edge/boundary of the product in some cases leading to floating or missing letters. They all have the hole for locating the spigot-mountings on the floors of some chariots, and they are also a more golden gold than the others.

Top are the Lucky Clover, they have the remnants of a chariot-mounting hole (their chariot has no spigot)filled in and are marked with a very uneven, or arcing HONG KONG in a more generic engineers letter-stamp format, gold is a darker, bronze-gold, if that isn't an oxymoron!

While at the bottom are the Woolbro/generic figures, easiest to sort as they have smooth, unmarked bases, and smooth un-detailed bodies! I've shot a darkish gold set here, but they can be found in a verity of shades . . .

Britains Herald; British Corwn Colony; But Is It Giant?; Castle Assebly; Fortress Battle Set; Giant Roman Chariot; Giant Romans; Herald Trojans; Hong Kong; Hong Kong Romans; Lucky Clover; Marx Romans; No 6646/9; No. 445; Plastic Fort; Roman Chariot; Roman Fort; Roman Fortress; Roman Soldiers; Roman Warriors; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tower Fortress With Soldiers; Woolbro Rack Toy; Woolbro Roman Fortress;
. . . as can be seen in the lower shot here, where we have the archer in artists gold (left) a washy, semi-translucent gold, a 9ct gold and the darker shade. The upper shot is my 'old soldier' and the OBE squaring-off - "To the death Achilles!"

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But is it Giant?

No! Nothing in this post is by Giant or was sold as Giant, although the interim figures (and possibly the yellow-door fort) may be from old, tired, ex-Giant tools? One could ponder all sorts, raise the questions of Bi-A-Toy or World Toy House, but I haven't seen these 'Romans' in the former packaging yet, while the later carried marked Giant originals.

If I was being tortured for an answer I would try to stick the unknown figure set and fort together, and possibly place them contiguous to the Lucky Clover set, or even slightly earlier as the first post-Giant copy/variety, but there is no evidence for any of it . . . yet!

More on these here; my notes on the unknown goldies shown there, vis-à-vis the Lucky Clover figures now looks a bit dodgy, but the etched detail on the Lucky is better, while the unknown's are 'closer' overall (size/pose) to the better Giant originals. One should also note the figures on PSR's Giant page, with the possible exception of the unpainted silver rider, are not Giant, but later copies.

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