So to the hardest to pin-down, they seem to have gone head-to-head with Giant, or appearing shortly after Giant, so could be earliest, but I suspect they are contemporary with but copied-from and a few months later than C1, with the C2's also copied from C1? But anyway, this post is on the C3's which are the poorest in quality really?
I believe the paint here is 'factory', and
they may have been painted to compete with the later, 1970's, bi-coloured packs
of Woolbro's Space Explorer Set's? I
have had more than one sample come in with the paint, same shade, and it's
painted over the runner-stubs (forth from left) which you feel a
modeller/war-gamer - even a young one - might have trimmed-off first?
Marking is a circular 'MADE IN HONG KONG', often double-stamped, or over-stamped, not always clear and in a more condensed font, while the bases are the largest of the four types (C2 are the smallest).
The same mark appears on at least one of many generations of Monogram GI copy, and a small-scale Blue Box piracy cow I have, so whoever this company was, they seem to have been quite busy churning out generic clones for unprincipled Western buyers, or unethical Western contractors!
While I have similar quantities of both,
that could be down to coincidence, as the next image would suggest unpainted
should be more numerous, but later-produced figures survive better (that's the
law of attrition), so if painting came later there would be proportionally-more
still around.
Old internet shot - a direct take of Giant's own set, but un-branded and in full colour, with no
apparent accessories - despite the artwork - the code number would tie this in
with the direct-copies of Giant Wild
West sets I have in the pile.
No paint on the figures and the Giant rip-offery, would point to this
effort being earlier, with later sets put-up against the Woolbro set, with paint, or 50/50 paint? This set also suggests
that there are non-Giant 'Giant' space-tanks
out there?
Here's another space tank . . . er! Posed with Marx's tracked Chlorine/Hydrogen/Oxygen rocket-fuel tanker, this is
a re-issue I think in a white plastic which could be a dense 'ethylene polymer
or a polypropylene? The figures are - of course - and like the other four sets
- all softer polyethylene plastic.
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But is it Giant
These like the C1 and C2's are copies, clones, piracies . . . there's nothing Giant here, but this type is trying hardest to be Giant with the total copy of card-art and accompanying text . . . including the probably non-existent rocket-firing tanks!
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