The Toy House's Strange Men from Mars . . . with Space Ship!

Some say Giant did supply these some say Giant had folded, some say Toy House used Giant, some say used they copies, and while I don't have a vast selection of Toy House mint/carded, so can't come off the fence on all points, I do have this, and can confirm the contents are Giant-marked with the full enchilada!

A handful of Giant aliens and a yellow space ship in a blister-card; the blister is heat-sealed (where early Giant blisters were sandwiched between card), which could point to a later-dated issue, or just a heat-sealer at the Toy House works, so while a clue, is only circumstantial, and of no help as Giant's later blisters were also heat-sealed!

Jack & Jill was an American kids periodical (1938-present day), confusing as we had one in the UK (1954-1985), whether there was any link/license between the two I don't know, while the reference to Life is because Toy House advertised in it, back in the day.

Also I mentioned on the 'Home' Blog the other day that there is a 'The' prefix to Toy House, but even they use the shorter form and you can see that in the blurb on the card reverse!

Toy House were a bit like Child Guidance, Early Learning or Hestair Kiddycraft, in that they dressed their toys up in a bit of science and cod child-psychology, and maintained that all their toys were tested on kids before going to market, but ultimately, being harsh - this is cheap, Hong Kong, rack-toy, polymer shite!

But . . . "Play Tested & Approved" . . . goddamned right; it's aliens with feckin' ray-guns!

Close-ups of the blister's contents, I struggle to come to a single total, but I think it's 26, so either one over 25, or short on a 30-target, as far as the figures go, all fully marked-up as per the previous post's figures; 'GIANT ⓟ HONG KONG', and mostly a matching purple plastic, with three dark brown and one bighter green.

Another comparison with a cheapo-copy/clone (pink one!) in the upper shot, and more Giant base-mark close-up's are seen in the lower image. Note - the lighter brown Giant figure.

Boysie-Boy (Cassius) is not as interested in this stuff as his much-missed mother was, but he does like an exploratory bite, not to be encouraged and no damage was done to rare packaging in the making of these images!

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But is it Giant?

Yes . . . and No! Yes, because it is (or contains) all Giant 'product', but, No, as it's A) branded to Toy House and B) we don't know - for certain - if Giant provided the product (I suspect they did) or if the originating factory/a shipper/agent in Hong Kong did. However . . . found loose - all Giant!

Giant Outer-Space Alien Bug-Eyed Martian Moon-Men From Mercury!

Flagged-up as forthcoming on the 'Home Blog' the other day, except this isn't the referred-to post on the Toy House blister set, but rather the lose Giant originals, the post on the Toy House set will be the next of two following this post.

Giant's space aliens; six poses, manufactured in a nicely tight palette of chocolate browns, jade-greens (here toward the darker hues) and a pink toward purple or is it purple toward pink (?) range. Note - the forth figure from the left (second green) is a left-hander, nice to know other worlds have the same variable DNA!

How they came here; despite what you might read - here, or elsewhere - they arrived in small, blow-moulded staring wheels (yeah, there's an attempt at a joke in there somewhere!). Seen in yellow and red (as here), I'd like to think there may be green or blue ones out there, but everyone else seems to only have, or found, red or yellow, so far?

They are soft polyethylene ('polythene') with a clear-plastic dome manufactured in harder polystyrene, which clips into three slots, found at the upper-roots of the ship's arms. The compartment will take two or three at a squeeze, but is probably designed for one figure.

Top - A comparison between the two similar 'advancing' poses, the figure on the left is almost stationary 'at the ready', while the figure on the right has a more horizontal weapon-hold and a bent right leg, he's clearly getting a shift-on!

Middle - Camera-flash rendered this a less than successful shot, but is supposed to be showing the range of the pinky-purple, with a darker purple on the left and a paler pinky on the right. Brighter and darker exist; see below.

Bottom - A Giant original on the left against a poorer clone on the right, the copies come in a wider range of often wackier colours (again; more below) but can be quite distorted or misshapen, and are all-over more 'blobby'.

There is little-to-no evidence that these large blow-moulds were ever branded to Giant, despite them being often so-described by some online (there's an hideously overpriced 2-pack on evilBay as I publish this, describing them as Giant), nor any evidence they were ever carried by Giant, PMC or the later Arcotoys? Every example I've seen/encountered (we looked at them here, a while ago) is an unmarked 'generic' rack toy.

Equally, there's nothing definitive to say whether they came first or second. My own feelings are that they are later copies, for a number of reasons, not least is that they only copied three of the six poses, a forth, less common pose (waving space-rifle) being not taken from Giant.

Additionally Giant's early bi-colour graphic blister-carded sets date from the early sixties while the larger bagged blow-moulds with full-colour header-cards are more late 1960's/1970's, so these days I suspect the blow-mould'er copied Giant's diminutive figures.

Comparison between Giant and non-Giant bases, the clones having a simple and often half-readable 'HONG KONG', the Giant's having the full 'GIANT ⓟ HONG KONG' mark.

Now, I have been quite derogatory toward the Giant ⓟ-mark . . . in the original series of articles in One Inch Warrior magazine (back issues may still be available of the later numbers), earlier on the home blog and most recently - I think - on the Roman page of the same Blog.

However someone then thought to add a rather long winded addition to his site - which hadn't worried about the ⓟ-mark until I did that Roman page - muttering about patents. There are several internationally recognised abbreviations pertaining to patents, all of which have been on the home Blog for a decade;

• Pat. - Patented
• Pat. App. - Patent Applied-for
• Pat. No. - Patent Number; followed by a numeral

In 1961 it was agreed internationally that the P in a circle mark; ⓟ, would represent phonograms (phonographic recordings), referred to as "...the sound recording, phonorecords, phonogram or phonographic copyright symbol" by the Rome Convention on such matters.

So, while some date Giant from 1959 (without empirical evidence), Tawser gives "common belief", which is pretty safe, Garratt gives 1962-, which is a bit later but would have come from one [or more] of his US correspondents (Pestano?) back in the day, nearer to when it all happened, I myself prefer a wider 1961/2, which gives a couple of years for production contracts to be settled and for New York to organise licences with the Hong Kong office and/or shippers, UK importers et al., to enable James Opie to be buying the early bicolour blister-card sets, in the UK, in 1964.

Even if Giant dates earlier (and the correct date for their move into the colony may be in the HK book), the ⓟ-mark is lacking from some of the earlier stuff, and fully-associated with the later-issued black/silver knights, as blister-cards gave-way to header-carded bags.

Ergo, Giant were pulling a fast-one with their ⓟ-mark, hoping people might THINK it meant patented or protected or some other equal nonsense, and as such I will continue to take the piss out of their ⓟ - yes; another attempt at a joke of some sort!

The aforementioned archive shots, I believe the trio in the bottom-left hand shot are now in my sample! The upper shot seems to have been worked-on in a picture-editor; the brown and green darkened as the pink has been enhanced to a probably false shade? While a more turquoise green is to be seen bottom right, in a more colour-true image.

The only remaining question is, are they aliens, aliens in space-suits or riveted android/robot types?

Elite interdiction-squad the 'Puce Panteras' of the 4th Astrovasion Wing (LRRP) receive the day's orders from their spore-parent, prior to launching their invasion of Earth, little did they know that their reconnaissance drones, lacking scale on the camera's, had sent back terribly inaccurate data, the Terran's were over a thousand height-units, and the gravity so heavy, the moon-men couldn't move, few survived, and decades later it was a rare thing to see them alive or dead, usually on the evilBay . . . for many credits; fate is a cruel mistress.
 

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But is it Giant?

Yes! except the obvious copies and the blow-mould comparison, this is all Giant product, unless it's Toy House, but I'm getting ahead of myself . . . see next post/'Newer Post'!

 

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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 . . .

. . . 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.