MPC Royal Canadian Mounted Police Set UNK YR (No Box) - Pt 2 Jail

Back in March 2023 I posted the jail but it had a brown front that matched the walls and roof. This one of course has a blue front. The door is missing - as is often the case - and there most likely would have been a Canadian flag that would be placed on the roof - also missing. The jail measures 5 1/2" (13,97cm) W x 3 1/4" (8,25cm) D x 4 5/8" (11,74cm) H.

Ed

That small pipe-looking affair towards the front of the roof is meant to accommodate a flag which MPC liked to put in its playsets.

MPC Royal Canadian Mounted Police Set UNK YR (No Box) - Pt 1

I just got this set in a couple of weeks ago. While doing random searches in fleaBay I came across this lot containing a bunch of MPC's early slot-hand figures, accessories, and a jail with blue front wall. The seller listed it as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) set and I'm okay with that as the accessories included bear that out - most especially the wide-brimmed 'ranger' hats. Okay, I hear what you're saying: maybe they were a part of an American park ranger or Boy Scout set. Also plausible, but then too I have never seen sets like those from MPC.  

After a quick follow-up with the seller he stated that the set was acquired a couple of years ago at the Chicago Toy Soldier Show and it was identified and sold as a RCMP set. Even without the original packaging that is a plausible assumption, based on MPC's prolific re-packaging of its buildings and figures into a myriad of sets. And they did of course sell a lot of them in Canada. Without the original packaging or a catalog reference (did these appear in any Eaton's or Simpsons-Sears catalogs???) I can't pin down a year.

You can see all the pieces that came in the set in the following photo. I'll be posting the jail and figures separately.

Ed

Several wide-brimmed ranger hats (plus what appears to be a baseball cap??), a Billy club, handcuffs, and a sign that says 'QUIET ZONE' may all be indicative of a Canadian set as I have yet to see an MPC American police set with those accessories.

MPC's Take On Western Towns - Pt 2 Cabin v. 2 Red SP (But Where's Pt 1?)

Wellll, in a classic example of putting the cart before the horse, I posted what could best be described as Part 1 back on 7 March in the post titled MPC Western Street Front.  Since then I've been taking a bunch of photos of my MPC job lots and now have enough material to make a mini-series on their Western buildings.

There were two competing venues for toy Western Towns back in the day: tin-litho and plastic and  both offered their own advantages and disadvantages. While Marx was the preeminent leader of tin-litho buildings (although a smattering of tin came from other manufacturers), MPC was the king of plastic.

Marx Silver City Streetfront included as part of Lone Ranger playsets

Marx made several streetfronts and the one above was made with different signage depending on whether the playset was for The Lone Ranger or Roy Rogers. They also made what is called the "Jailside' streetfront wherein the far left portion of the building was sans awning and lithographed for a jail.

This smaller sized tin-litho streetfront was used in Gunsmoke and Tales of Wells Fargo sets

These were gorgeous, bright, colorful, highly detailed tin buildings but once assembled, they weren't easily portable - no taking your playset to Aunt Sally's to pass the time away while visiting. (BTW I had an aunt and uncle who had a Marx Fort Apache playset at their house that I could play with whenever we visited). Tin-litho buildings also tended to rust over time if not cared for properly.

MPC on the other hand went plastic. Their buildings were lighter and some were made to be easily taken apart so that junior could readily transport his toys to Aunt Sally's for playtime. So, let's backtrack a tad bit and show you what we posted a couple of weeks ago:

This streetfront didn't need to be taken apart being all one piece (except for the railing above the saloon door)

***UPDATE 23 Mar 2023***

I changed the designation from 'version 1' to 'version 2' as this style was apparently a later design of MPC basic Western town buildings.

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And now. let's take a look at today's post: the MPC cabin that I'm calling 'version 2'. MPC made a couple of different types of cabin but quite honestly, I don't know which was produced first. Anywho, this is the first one I have with photos finished and ready to post. 

This soft plastic building utilizes tab-&-slot construction and is generally easy to take apart. Unfortunately - as you can see in the photos - the tabs have a tendency to break off over the years if not handled properly. I had to assemble this from parts that came in a couple of job lots and one of the walls is a mismatched color. It measures 5 1/2" (13.97cm) W x 3 1/4" (8.25cm) D x 4 3/8" (11.11cm) H overall.

The doors on these buildings were a part of the front wall casting and held in place by sliver-thin pieces of plastic which inevitably broke after use. The result is missing doors on most buildings.

The tabs are broken off on one side, but the top tabs on this wall are enough to hold it all together

Do you see that little tab-like thing sticking up on the roof just behind the façade? That was meant to hold flagpoles

MPC 60mm ringhand shown here for size

MPC '70s Era Covered Wagon with Cardboard Cover

It didn't take long for my MPC wagon collection to go into 'super bloom' mode and before I knew it there were a gazillion different variations hanging out in The Cave! Sometimes the body or wheels of the wagon would be different colors or sometimes MPC just placed different covers on its wagons. During the 1970s MPC/Multiple/Miner started adding more and more cardboard pieces like printed figures and accessories to its sets. This wagon came in a Fort Frontier set I posted not too long ago, and has a cardboard cover instead of the older style plastic one. The cardboard cover is nice and has a lot more color and details that the plastic covers and while it has the potential for looking more realistic, that look can be ruined if the person placing the cover on the wagon doesn't do it right. Case in point: the cover on my wagon has more of a folded look than a nice curved look! That curvature would mimic the canvass cover being applied over the curved wooden bows on the wagon. Anywho, one of these days I'll do a post showing all my different wagons so that you can see what goes into collecting these things. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Courtesy: https://oregontrailcenter.org/the-wagon

The MPC Covered Wagon

I scanned the cover so that you can print one out on cardstock

MPC Teepee's (or Tipi's) - Another Variation

Soooo, you get a set in you like and it has cool accessories - in this case an MPC playset which had teepees in it. Then you get in another set and it too has the same accessory but there's a variation! THEN you get some more stuff in and fine yet another variation, and so on! Whooppee LOL This is both fun and frustrating for collector's. There are no really good reference materials to show every variation and it's fairly safe to assume more will be found over time. So, as I like to say, the hunt is on!.

Here's what happened. I bought one of MPC's many Fort Frontier sets and it had a couple of teepees with yellow frames and a white-&-red cover. Then I got another set with a black frame and  white-&-red cover. Then I got a set with a paper teepee. Then a job lot of MPC odds-&-ends came in and the teepee in the lot had a brown frame with yellow-&-red cover and it had the top piece missing from all the other tents accumulated to-date! Cool! Let's take a look at the latest variation. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

That top, which represents where all the poles would meet and cross on the real thing, is a separate piece and usually missing

Different color frames, different color covers. 

The paper teepee.