Pages

Friday, May 23, 2014

MPC (Multiple Plastics Corp) Civil War Tents

On our quest to find every toy accessory ever made for the American Civil War we present to you today the Multiple Plastics Corp. Civil War Tents in Blue & Gray!

(Okay, we're not really on the hunt for every accessory ever made, but it sure does feel like it's gone that route sometimes. AND the tents are brown and gray, not blue and gray - that was in reference to the two ACW armies). 

As a kid I think I had about as many MPC army men as Marx, or Rel, or Tim Mee Toy, or.... They were cheap and you could get header bag sets just about anywhere. And then there were the larger sets of course with all the cool accessories which couldn't fit in smaller bags. While MPC made Civil War soldiers in both 50mm and 60mm sizes, I believe only the 60mm size had tents. As a matter of fact, I don't think any accessories were made for the 50mm line, it was just a limited, small-sized, line of one-piece plastic soldiers. Instead, MPC lavished their attention on the larger 60mm soldiers in many styles: Civil War, Pirates, Jungle, Army men, etc., and they were mostly ring-hand figures. We'll look at MPC ring-hands another time, but the point is, regardless of what type of 60mm toy figure you were buying MPC offered a variety of accessories to go with them like these tents. 

The ACW tents were offered in two colors, a brownish/rust color, and gray in lettered and unlettered versions. The Union tents had "BATTERY G 4th U.S. ARTILLERY"  heat stamped in white on one half of the top while the Confederate tents had "CONFEDERATE ARMY HEADQUARTERS" heat stamped on one side of the top. The tents were designed to look as if all four sides were rolled up leaving the support posts exposed which facilitated placement of the toy soldiers inside of them. The tents and poles were sold color-matched, however nowadays it's sometimes difficult to find enough poles color-matched to the tents as you'll see in the photographs. The tents measure 5 5/8" (14.3cm) L x 4 3/4" (12.1cm) W x 3 1/2" (8.9cm) H. Enjoy!













This group photo includes a couple of little green Army men tents


No comments:

Post a Comment