I always go for the smaller sized stuff and upon learning various entities had fabricated reduced size versions of the classic four inch Archer Plastics space figures I was hooked. Have only found a few and some rate as favorites of the whole collection. I've enjoyed using the change in scale as a way to mess with perspective in artful pix of them, and many scale well with the Cars of Tomorrow vehicles Archer excelled at. Can't believe nobody thought of combining them into playsets.
And while being enamored with them I've always wondered how they came to be, a trait inherited from mom who was a library sciences archivist. We live for dates, names, connections, something I project onto my collecting. I also grew up in the 70s and 80s when there was more regular oversight of toy production and companies observed fair business practices unless they were China. So I'd always presumed there must have been a certain amount of cooperation between Archer and the different companies who pressed small scaled rehashes of their figure designs, and sat down to learn about it.
One company likely did, a pioneering British toy soldier company called Johillco. They produced a marvelous set of smaller scaled Archer figures in lead with painted details, fitted helmets, and an admirable enough attention to detail to suggest Archer themselves may have been involved. Johillco's boxed sets had the entire Archer crew and then some. If my understanding was correct were only made for export to North America, which resulted in this copy mayhem later on.
The two above made by followup company Cherilea Toys from the Johillco mold are among my favorites from the whole space bling collection. Well made, decently balanced on pod feet with admirable restraint shown in how they were decorated. I also think they look better in their helmets than the Archer figures do, most of whom I can see as "complete" without them. These would be sadly incomplete without helmets and I look after both with great care.
Cherilea marks across their backsides. So these two could be regarded as authorized, though there is no mention of any interaction between Archer and Cherilea in Blast Off! (2001). They inherited the mold, added their mark and kept making them. Fair enough.
Right arm is not raised to the degree the Archer figure's is but the rest of the pose is well translated.
Force Field guy leans forward a bit more and isn't as stout. Almost looks like he might be about to jump.
Larger Archer originals with reduced size versions by Tudor Rose. Which came in two sizes: Small, and smaller. If my understanding of the text from "Blast Off!" is correct Tudor Rose did not begin making their downsizers until 1957, by which time Archer Plastics had reformed as an educational toy company. Part of their compulsion to produce them was high demand for the Johillco space figures boxed up for export. So they just started making them from house-designed molds, some of which do a better job of approximating the larger figures than others.
The smaller size, no markings. The other size figures are marked.
Tudor's downsized Premier stacks up well to his fullsize version.
The Sentry is just sort of there. Smaller one coated with a semi metallic glaze, likely inflicted by a prior owner. Pretty sure they were meant to have the full rifle the blue Glencoe copy behind them carries. Mine don't.
I like the smaller blue figure, his big brother comes off as sloppy and very poorly balanced.
Now with green translucent Cracker Jack copy missing its charm lanyard ring.
That's the pose, and it's the Cracker Jack mini Archers that really make me scratch my head. You'd think they'd have noticed? Or someone mention "Dude, your spacemen are now Cracker Jack prizes and they made three million of them."
Rifle guy pose is more obvious including the triangular stance and upward angle at which the rifle is held.
They even copied the suit tanks. Did Bob Genin know about this? Was there any interaction between the two companies? It's thinking that even Cracker Jack took them to the cleaners that is most disillusioning. They made enough of them so that even today they are a common e-b4y find. Keep putting off landing more, wide range of colors and opaqueness.
Cracker Jack robots up front with Empire "Touchdown" robots, a Magic Robot game board figure and assorted Archer robots. How they got those heads off took effort.
The Walker pose, named (for my own reference) after Lee Marvin's character from the 1967 crime thriller "Point Blank". Now there's a movie.
More Walker poses including the figure in blue from the soft plastic Satellite Men group, which means it can't be a girl. But it's the same basic Archer pose re-worked for the hard plastic Men of Mars group, who don't mention anything about girls either.
Just has super pretty eyes for a spaceman. And good at math.
I can take pictures of these things all day.
Empire Plastic's near comical Force Field guys. They just made em. No mention of any connections.
Some odd differences between the two smaller. These shown here all soft plastic but an earlier hard plastic version was made as well, with colors in your standard hard plastic spaceman ranges of metallic shades. Did Archer knew they made buckets and buckets and buckets of them for every gumball machine on the east coast? Five cents each, times a couple million. You'd want to know.
I used to think the Tudor Rose figure at left was a pretty snappy looking approximation of Archer's Walker. Now he looks like a droopy drawered punk from Brixton alongside the better proportioned Cherilea.
Yeah I know, the right arm. Haven't a pix of the full Cherilea set onhand, they may have done another with the arms at exact matching angles. Wasn't bent. More I see that pale green the more I like it. Has that Lost Russian Cosmonaut thing going on.
Perspective studies, all vintage. It matters.
Orange and blues are Glencoe reissues.
Now we're just posting pix cos they're cool and no other plans for them exist. With Magic Robot game board piece. I guess they just went ahead and made a million of him too?
Up on their asteroid, looking for more suckers to come along.
Archer Spaceboy cleaned up real good for a new Family Snapshot. Space Girl looks a tad larger in scale to the guy. I know the lady with the Space Baby should be his match but lack a confirmed vintage example. The girl passed all vintage indicator tests which can be applied, so she gets to play Mom.
Spaceboy with dubious colorful cronies from Prudhoe. Looking like a power pop Space Menudo trio.
Hey! and they're Off to the Brewpub. Told ya that's a girl.
No comments:
Post a Comment