Giant Plastics Corp: Job Lot No. 2 of Western Toys

I got this job lot for the wagons and the teepee. The foot and mounted figures are quite plentiful and readily available and I already had loads of 'em but sometimes - if all you want is the wagons or other accessories - it's cheaper to buy a lot like this than to buy them individually. Turns out the supply wagon on the right was not marked 'GIANT' but it is definitely one of their castings. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Giant Plastics Corp: Job Lot No. 1 of Western Toys

Toys from Giant Plastic Corp (aka Giant of Homg Kong) have been featured here on the blog before but mostly Roman/Greek and Viking stuff. I haven't begun to cover the Western or American Civil War or Little Green Army Men or Space toys they offered back in the '60s. The Giant brand was among my favorites as a kid and I had a bunch of them. They were cheap pocket-change toys and nearly all - if not in fact all of them - were carded rack toys. No big sets here folks - albeit some of the carded sets were  kind of large - but no boxed super sets. Giant made a lot of toys but the the ones that seem to have captured collector's attention the most are the 1/87/ HO scale figures. They had: Little Green Army Men, Vikings, Romans (at least that's how they were marketed, but many were based on Greek models), American Civil War, Revolutionary War, Space, and Old West. There were foot soldiers, mounted figures, forts, wagons, chariots, ships, cannon's, tanks, bunkers, teepee's, and a slew of other accessories. Awesome stuff for 99cents back in the day!!

On that note, I'm gonna show you some stuff I've picked up this past year or so. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

I'm posting this as a 'Giant' lot because some of the Western figures, mounted cavalry, and cannon with limber are all marked Giant. The two wagons and the remaining figures were either clones or Airfix, or...?

This Fort Cheyenne is actually in fairly rough shape and in order for it to be set up properly, will probably need to be glued to a base. Notice how far down on the walls the ramparts are! The pointed ends of the 'timber's' are up - as they should be - but those ramparts must have been put there by a drunken toolmaker!

A note on what we tend to call 'Giant clones'. It is generally agreed that Giant marked nearly everything as 'GIANT' - figures on bases, forts, wagons, etc. However, they apparently had a reputation for cloning themselves! They would remove the 'GIANT' markings on the tooling and sell the figures as unbranded 'Made in Hong Kong' sets. When you look at many of the carded/bagged sets that are still available in the collector's arena, their progenity is clearly 'GIANT' - not Airfix, not Italieri - GIANT! They did this in apparent attempt to avoid lawsuits and copyright infringements, etc. Clearly, many of their figures and accessories were copies of Marx toys pantographed down to 1/87 scale. Later of course they would be sold openly under the 'Helen of Toy' label or 'Lucky Clover'.

There was only one guard tower in my lot

I posted this still sealed Fort Cheyenne set back in April 2020. It is unbranded and the packaging only says 'Made in Hong Kong'

Cheap Prehistoric Playset

Sooo, I ended up buying a couple of really cheap prehistorc playsets this past year. My thoughts were that I could maybe use the landforms and trees that came in them, but after getting them and checking them out I just decided to give 'em to the thrift store - let some little kid out there in the wild have some fun. This set was unbranded and the pieces were loose in the carboard shipping box. The figures are pretty small with the biggest dinosaur measuring only 2 1/2" (6.35cm) L x 2" (5.08cm) H. The volcano is hard plastic and is actually kind of okay but ultimately I just said "To heck with it" and got rid of the set. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Marx Toys U.S. Cavalry Square Top Wagon (1992) - Assembled Pt 2

Here we have the New Marx Square Top Wagon decked  out in the included gray accessories plus some comaprison of new and original. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

New Marx plastic axles vs...

original Marx metal axles

Some new Marx and original marx comparison shots

Marx Toys U.S. Cavalry Square Top Wagon (1992) - Assembled Pt 1

Like so many projects around here, I've been slow-leaking this one but the "oomph" to get a move-on finally kicked in and I got 'er done! Overall this was a decent re-make of Marx's original square top wagon. Given that it was made mostly with the same tooling it would have to be. 

Okay, to start on a positive note, there are enough pieces included to make two different versions of the wagon. All the light blue accessories make it an ambulance, while the medium gray accessories make it a work-a-day type wagon. The included dark blue driver is also nice, but...

...there is a good deal of flash which requires cleaning off. I noticed in the photos I missed a couple of spots but overall most of it got removed. For whatever reason, the people at New Marx decided to go through the trouble to make new plastic axles for this thing instead of just cutting wire stock as on the original (I ended up temporarily losing one of the axles and quickly cut a length of coat hanger so I could take photos). Since then I've located the errant axle. Enjoy! Opa Fritz        

Marx Toys U.S. Cavalry Square Top Wagon (1992) - To Open or Not? OPENED

I posted the unopened package for this wagon just a couple of weeks ago. The quandery was wether or not I should open what is a fairly hard to come by piece, but after some input from fb groups which stated that the blue-molded pieces tend to go brittle, I thought it best to open it and record it for posterity. :-)  I got distracted again but finally did get around to cutting the bag open and at least photographing the contents. I hope I can get it assembled this week! Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Ed's Travelogue: San Diego Zoo 4 Nov 1979 - Pt Final - Postcards

Welll, normally I post the brochures, flyers, and postcards first but I forgot to do that this time around. This about wraps it up for 1979. Hope you enjoyed a look back at the way things were 42 years ago! Up next: 1980! 1980 wasn't nearly as busy travel-wise but it did have some memorable high spots. Stay tuned to this station boys and girls for more adventures of Airman Eddie! LOL Enjoy! Opa Fritz