The horse; as shown with the P1 post, the
P2 has cruder carving to the mane and tail, thinner walls to its flanks and is
unmarked. Other differences (between the two P's) include the holes for the rider's
locating-spigots being set higher in the saddle-moulding on the P2 and a
slightly lower head position with a 'softer' neck
It also has a clearly defined flat top to
the body cavity, tends to a glossier plastic and has one of the smallest ranges
of plastic-colours of all Hong Kong hollow-horses, apart from a few slight
shade differences in the brown, there is a black, white and grey and that's it.
Lots of them too, these were made in the
modern era, when machines could run for hours with huge hoppers of
colour-stable granules, their pigments chemically matched to tolerances of
100th's of grams-per-ton, so like modern army-men you don't find the slight variations
in colour between batches, you will find with older sets/lines.
The reason browns often retain the
variation is down to their being - in plastics terms - technically a purple; a
mixture of red, yellow and blue, and therefore harder to match and more likely
to result in variance.
A comparison between the Pony (P2) and the
old Giant 'Smoothie', the genetics
are there but they are very different beasts; the Pony being altogether more
smooth, boxy and toy-like next to the Smoothie, who was christened that, by me,
as he is himself smoother than the sculpted [Crescent] 'Wavymane'!
As we led with the cowboys on P1, we'll lead
with the Natives this time . . . and what a shower! These are very poor
sculpts, almost deserving of the term semi-flat, no details at all, few
extremities, all weapon tips missing - and I'm sure it's the mould; not
short-shots.
They are recognisable as the old Giant
poses, but only just and like the horses, the colour range of the plastic is
limited, and colour-fast between batches, which - with their other [non]
features make them easier to sort out of mixed lots. Locating-studs are short
and fat.
The same points extend to the cowboys;
colour-fast, ex-Giant, semi-flat, crappy mouldings. Interestingly, despite at
least three sources (in a minute!) and many years of collecting, the evidence
suggests the mounted Indians outnumber the cowboys by a slight but constant 5:4
or maybe 4:3
So, we have quite a few sets for these,
which is the best way to confirm earlier sorting, and while I can't be sure of
the dates, I'm pretty sure these were first. The Einco 'Indian Village',
which I remember hanging in Webb's newsagent
in Hartley Wintney in around 1974.
This is one of the best non-Giant sets of the type (despite the
awful sculpts) having various additional contents to actually make a
'mini-playset'. You may recognise the trees as being common from Ri-Toys sets later in the 1970's through
to the early '90's and that gives us a clue to Einco being a made-up brand (or 'phantom' in today's lingo) and
confirms with the sets lower down the post.
The obvious addition is two poses of foot
figure, both crude, both semi-flat'ish, both [barely] recognisable as ex-Giant sculpts but apparently carved from
a block of soap with a sharpened spoon! Colours are even tighter than for the
mounted figures, as they were - to my knowledge - only ever used with the one
set, so; a relatively small production-contract.
Both figures have small protrusions on
their bases, which may be deliberate, or may be accidental damage to the
mould-tool, or some long-forgotten part of the production process of this set?
There are similar marks on a Noah from Pagget Brothers, and one wonders if
there was a concerted attempt to make figures stand up better on the deep-pile
carpets of 1970's suburban houses, but it's conjecture and a long-shot!
There are a few versions of this Tee-Pee
(Tipi) out of Hong Kong, and this is a copy of earlier better ones, copying
even the weird tie-down hooks at either side - possibly used to attach the
original donors to base-cards with thread in window-box sets.
Fences in two sizes, bog standard HK-fayre,
being copies of Merit line-side
fencing and Britains farm stock. The
trees are a simplified Britains
palm-quartet and a poplar tree of dubious
origin . . . and we have an
additional horse; not part of the 'hollow-horse' oeuvre!
The reason for the inclusion of the solid
horse is for the operating of a rather European looking muck-cart, the Indians
obviously swapped for a pile of coon-skins! While some of the additional components
were Rado Industries own, I suspect
this pair may have been bought-in, they are quite different to the crudities of
the rest of the set and used to turn-up in Christmas-crackers and the like.
The yellow wagon is from another source and
is placed in the collage for comparison; it has locating-studs for a horse
(Probably hollow) I have yet to ID/ascribe.
I'm pretty sure these come later, all the
accessories have gone, the unmistakeable Ri-Toys
tree-logo is present and the only thing to note is the tight 'colour way' of
each set, there's about 25, 30-maybe per pack.
Generic sets also exist without the Ri-Toys tree logo, and artwork re-drawn
in brighter, flatter colours, these are even smaller with an eight-figure
contents count, per bag.
And please don't imagine I think these came second or the P1's first, they have been labelled arbitrarily and numbered arbitrarily by me, and give the numbers of these compared to the P1, it could well be the P1 is an off-shoot or piracy of P2, but they (the P1 people!) made more effort - with the figures and the horse - so it gets first billing
===============================================================
But is it Giant?
No, this set and the similar P1's date from
long after Giant has been replaced as
a branding by Arco with their larger,
poorer quality, rack-toys, and while Arco may have issued some small-scale
hollow-horsed sets; A) they would have bought-them in and B) Ri-Toys are one of the few
'known-players' among the thousands (of plastics manufacturers) operating out
of Hong Kong. Whether Einco were a
Western importer or a made-up name is the only question-mark outstanding here,
really.
