HO Scale Cowboys and Indians 6-pack - Hong Kong Unbranded Giant Knock-off

A couple of years back I blogged this set as part of a larger post highlighting some of the many types of Giant Plastic's Toys. Giant made a lot of different toys but the ones I remember were their HO scale sized figures and those have been featured quite a bit here on Toys and Stuff. As this week is busy and blogging time limited, I'm going to let this package of Giant clones stand alone in its own post. 

The intertwined network of plastic toy companies in the warrens of Hong Kong - collectively known as Mom & Pop, Inc. - were pumping out these little gems by the gazillions, borrowing tooling from cousin Vinny down the alley and conveniently not placing any company names on them. But I'm okay with that LOL Well hell, it's because of that, that we have so many variations and themes and what have you, to collect right? If all we had were the the brand name toys it would far less interesting. That being said, the Cowboy and Indian theme was always popular and little pocket change sets like these could be used to flesh out a scene on the cheap. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Giant Plastics Corp: Giant Lot of GIANT's

In a good example putting the cart before the horse, I posted several job lots of 'Giant' Cowboys and Indians here recently. However, it was this huge lot purchased sometime last year (OR was it the year before? - hmmm) that I got first! It's a batch of mostly 'Giant' Cowboys and Indians with some of their American Civil War stuff thrown in. I know, this lot should've been posted first but, well, oh heck here it is now. The three other groups of Cowboys and Indians posted recently were all bought in an attempt to gather up enough wagons for some interesting scenarios, and like I've said, sometimes it's cheaper to buy a job lot which includes figures and wagons, than it is to buy the wagons one at a time.

My ultimate goal in getting all these 'Giant' (and 'Giant' clone) toys was to ultimately put together some kind of display or diorama - probably a temporary one like what's been posted here on the blog in the past with my Roman/Greek figures and Viking toys. Right now though The Cave is a bit too uncomfortable to work in for long and I've also been trying to work on my Lionel train layout. That layout board is the space I had been using for all these toy set-ups so I gotta put on my thinking cap and come up with a different solution. Also too, there's gonna be a ton of leftover figures - I certainly am not going to need all the figures that have accumulated, so somewhere down the line I'll have to sell some off. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Giant Plastics Corp: Job Lot No. 3 of Western Toys

Another job lot purchased mainly for the wagon as I already have the riders from other lots. This wagon was marked 'GIANT' underneath, unlike the wagon included in Lot 2. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

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'