Below Decks: Checking For Air Leaks (Marx Mexico Recast Astronaut 4" / 100mm - Silver SP)

Here's a more recent photo utilizing the backdrops I printed out a couple of years ago. The figure is a 4" Marx recast from Mexico, while the helmet was borrowed from my box of Glencoe spacemen. Be Blessed and Relish Life! Ed 

GIANT Plastics Corp. (aka GIANT of Hong Kong) / Helen of Toy Space Toys - Pt 7 25mm Astronaut Pose 5

'Running with rifle ' - another pose culled from the Little Green Army Men coterie. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

GIANT Plastics Corp. (aka GIANT of Hong Kong) / Helen of Toy Space Toys - Pt 6 25mm Astronaut Pose 4

I'll tell ya what - it's been a rough month and it's been hard keeping my head in the game. I noticed that I mis-numbered the series parts, so had to go back and make sure each title was numbered correctly.  Everything is back on track and there shouldn't be any more faux pas', essential in that there are still quite a few posts to go.

Moving right along, up next in our look at GIANT 25mm is another adapted Little Green Army Man figure turned Spaceman. He's posed holding a walkie-talkie - a common pose for Little Green Army Men - but he's trying to talk through his helmet!  I s'pose - whatever works! Enjoy! Opa Fritz

GIANT Plastics Corp. (aka GIANT of Hong Kong) / Helen of Toy Space Toys - Pt 3 PFPC No. 57 Oct 98

I kind of got ahead of myself in my posts. This was meant to be the first post in the series but because I had saved it elsewhere on the computer, and not in my 'GIANT' folder, I forgot about it. 

The line of GIANT 1/72 scale figures was covered quite nicely in the now defunct Plastic Figure & PLAYSET Collector magazine issue no.57 (Oct 98). Now, to be sure GIANT made other toys - after all, they were a toy company - but it's their line of military figures which captured our imagination and attention. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Marx 65mm Soft Plastic Swoppet-Style Spacemen - Pt 1

I'm still fighting a cold and not feeling up to par, but figured I could sneak in a simple post. This next series of spacemen is real small - only three poses. Made by Marx, these three astronauts are large - at 65mm - and were copies of Cherilea's Swoppet-style spacemen. I don't know the history of these sculpts and how Marx ended up making them after first being produced by Cherilea. They're called 'swoppet's' because one could swap out the heads, helmets, and gear. They're made of soft plastic and their biggest drawback is the tendency for them to warp out of true enough such that cannot be stood up. I've tried dunking in boiling water, positioning them, then letting them dry but for some reason they never maintain the corrected shape for long and always revert to the warped state. Oh well. That being said I managed to get these photos with them all standing long enough for the camera. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

These photos were culled from fleaBay and show what carded examples look like.

An inventory shot to show what figures I have

There's only three styles of helmets that I'm aware of.

It's a lot easier to just leave the heads inside the helmets when swapping.

Original Cherilea gear. There are tabs behind the pieces which fit into holes on the figures. Unfortunately the tabs on the Cherilea gear are too thick to fit into the holes on the Marx figures. There are no maker's marks on this gear.

The Marx figures have no makers mark, but the gear all have the 'Mar-X' Marx herald.

Marx Swoppet sans gear! Gotta love that pointy head! LOL 

As tall as he is, the Marx spaceman is dwarfed by the Archer dude

LP 60mm Astronaut - Nickle Plated HP

 LP made astronauts and aliens in a variety of sizes as well some were soft plastic, some hard plastic, some painted, some not, and some nickel plated. That being said, it's fun trying to track down their various iterations. This guy is fairly large at 60mm and he is in a plated hard plastic. Most likely he would have been included in a set with other space toys which have since gone their way through the cosmos. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Here is a pretty good shot of the 'LP' logo on a toy. Often times - especially on the much smaller pieces - the logo is hardly discernible.