#437 ACTION MAN / ADVENTURE TEAM / GEYPERMAN – SCOUT CAR/ CARRO BLINDADO (1975)

Although I have more Madelman and Geyperman (vintage G.I. Joe) toys, it’s been an eternity since I last talked about them. I received around one year ago a big box full of parts and pieces (some of them even in their original packages), but I haven’t had the time to sort everything out, and check which sets are complete and which sets aren’t. This is the first toy I am showing out of that lot.

 

The “Carro Blindado Geyperman” is really the “Scout Car” from Palitoy’s Action Man, a huge hollow plastic vehicle with very strong wheels. It has place for only one figure, and lacks of impressive features (only a movable machine gun, and a small flag –missing in this model, I will make a repro one as soon as possible), but it is still a nice vehicle for big (1:8) action figures. It has a spare wheel that can replace any of the other 4 wheels.

What I would point out are the stickers that the vehicle has. I think they’re original: head and rear lights, an army emblem and the Geyperman logo.

The vehicle looks very impressive even today. Despite being relatively simple (and probably) cheap to produce, its size makes it look better than it is. Surely a children’s favourite when playing with sand, stones…

In Germany, Schildkröt renamed the Scout Car as UN Friedenstruppe Sicherungs-Fahrzeug (Security Vehicle of the UN Peace Troops). We have commented several times that the German market is especially reluctant to any type of toys related to war.

In this Spanish catalogue image, we can see the a promotional diorama picture.

Geyperman Ref. 7404/ Carro Blindado

 And to finish the article, I'll show the original Spanish box. Rather por, since it is made of cardboard with very few colours.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: Scout Car / Carro Blindado (Ref. 7404) / UN Friedenstruppe Sicherheits-Fahrzeug
• Toy Line: G. I. Joe / Action Man / Adventure Team / Action Team / Geyperman
• Year: 1975
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.) / Palitoy (G. Britain) / Schildkröt (Germany) / Geyper (Spain)
• Size: approx. 50 cm

#436 GOOD TIMES - KULT! Nr. 10 (2/2014)

The new issue of Good Times (it is not “new” anymore, since it was released a few months ago) has again a bunch of articles related to toys, just as it happened in the ninth issue… great!

Toy articles that I’d like to point out:
-40 years of Playmobil
-Steiff (the famous German teddy bears)
-The toy industry in Sonneberg (Germany)

Especially interesting is the third one, written by Kati Naumann. It is a very long article talking about many small toy manufacturers that existed in this city some decades ago. The article contains lots of pictures.

For some reason, this last article has a layout with three columns, that in my opinion, makes it quite difficult to read. I guess the guys from Kult! have to fit everything in a certain number of pages…

The rest of the magazine contains as usual topics related to cars (Mercedes Class C), motorbikes (Yamaha XT 500), football (Schalke 04 from 1972), TV series, films, comic books, music or food (Sugus).

#435 INVICTA – AUTO ACCIDENTE/ CAR CRASH (Around 1955)

JUGUETES INVICTA – INVICTA TOYS

This car is a toy that my father got as a kid. He always took good care of it, and even today is in a very good condition. I took the pictures a long time ago, until I decided to investigate a bit about it.

The toy is a clockwork car with red body (it was also available in blue). The front bumper holds the front wheels together to the chassis, and the body is simply placed over it. When the car crashes, the bumper releases some kind of hinge, and the body of the car “flies” away, as well as the front wheels. It is quite interesting to see it working. Unfortunately, with the use, the car has a crack line at one side of the body, but it is in very good condition, nevertheless.

The car is marked on the base with the words: “INVICTA PATENTADO – Fabricación Española”. Also the front grill is marked “Invicta”.

After I took the pictures, I once saw the following pictures at some auction site. The Invicta model is clearly based on a previous Gama model, although this one seems to have a different mechanism (it has an on/off button over the left front wheel).

Gama model in which "Auto Accidente" is based on.

Well, after a quick search, I found at autoescala.net some information about Invicta. Apparently, Invicta was a toy factory based on Zarauz, Guipúzcoa (Zarautz, Gipuzkoa in Basque language). Its founder was Enrique Keller Fritsch, a businessman with German roots, who, in 1932, decides to start a company that would originally have his own name.

A document found in the auction site todocoleccion shows one of the first catalogues that the company published, in which we can see that their first products were mostly wooden toys (like cars, trucks, dominoes or construction blocks) and music instruments for children and grown-ups. Some sets were intended to be assembled at home and included a wooden hammer.

It seems that the best-selling products were some kind of harmonicas/mouth organs, sold under the brands “Opera” and “Victoria” (hi-quality models) or “Invicta”, “Gloriosa”, “Torero” and “Perla” (the toy-quality models, probably much cheaper than the other two).

 Juguetes Invicta Catalogue. I cannot remember where did I take this picture from, 

if you're the owner, please leave a comment, so I can credit the pictures. Thanks.

Pictures: www.todocolección.net

We don’t know if this catalogue was published after or before the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and we have no data of what happened to the company during these years. Anyway, the company kept operating after 1939, and extended its toyline to die-cast toys, for example cars in 1/43 scale or H0-scale railroads (similar to Märklin), and later, plastic. It is also known, that Invicta sometimes built toys under the license of foreign companies, like the French manufacturer Jouef (at least from 1966 on), or like (in this case) the German toymaker Gama.

Another interesting product are the ultra-rare zamak die-cast cars in 1:43 scale. There are 6 known models similar to Dinky Toys, Lyon Toys, Quiralu or CIJ. These are thought to have been manufactured around 1957 or 1958.

The following two pictures show one boxed sample of this toy. The model is blue instead of red.

Pictures: www.todocolección.net

Pictures: www.todocolección.net

Other traditional toys like clockwork animals can be seen (and bought) at todocoleccion.net. The company also produced (and still produces) high quality guitars since 1944. This company shouldn't be mistaken by Invicta from Barcelona, that produced television, radios and other small electrical appliances.

Pictures: www.todocolección.net

Hope you enjoy the pictures in this entry, and that you found the information interesting.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: AUTO ACCIDENTE (Ref. 1600)
• Year: Around 1955
• Company: INVICTA (Spain)
• Size: Around 15 cm.

#434 MC TOY – TOYOTA MR-2, TOYOTA HILUX SR5, NISSAN MID-4 and MAZDA RX-7 (1986 and 1987)

I am showing today four MC Toy cars which represent Japanese models. You can review my previous articles in which I explained some facts about MC Toys here (#390) and here (#391), or you can click on label MC Toy to see everything published about this brand.

I bought these four many years ago and have never been used, that’s why they’re mint. These models look absolutely great. From the perspective of the European collector they’re interesting models, since they’re models which have only been manufactured as a toy by brands like Tomica, and therefore they were difficult to find.

TOYOTA MR-2 (Ref. 8619) and NISSAN MID-4 (Ref. 8737)

MC TOY - TOYOTA MR-2 (Ref. 8619) and NISSAN MID-4 (Ref. 8737)

TOYOTA HILUX SR5 (Ref. 8621)
 

MC TOY - TOYOTA HILUX SR5 (Ref. 8621)

This model was equipped with a different type of wheels made only for a few models. It also has some fragile plastic parts behind the cabin, that are sometimse missing.

MAZDA RX-7 (Ref. 8738)

MC TOY - MAZDA RX-7 (Ref. 8738)

Note the nice tampography work in all four models. Although it was not perfect yet, it was much better than the work of their competitors.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: TOYOTA MR-2 (Ref. 8619), TOYOTA HILUX SR5 (Ref. 8621), NISSAN MID-4 (Ref. 8737) and MAZDA RX-7 (Ref. 8738)
• Scale: 1:64 (approx.)
• Year: The two first digits in the reference number indicates the year of design and manufacture, so: 1986 and 1987.
• Company: MC Toy (U.S.A./ Macau)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm

#433 HASBRO’S WWF – BIG BOSSMAN #2, SGT. SLAUGHTER, EARTHQUAKE and TYPHOON (1992)

Big Bossman #2 (with nightstick)

Big Bossman was available in the first wave, but not in the second, so this would be his second (and last) appearance as a toy. The first figure is not very appretiated by wrestling fans, since it depicts a too fat Ray Traylor. This second figure is much better done and looks much more like the real wrestler. The figure came with a stick, which is different from the one released with version 1, so if you´re a very scrupulous collector, you should pay attention to this. The move from figure version two is also an already known one. It is not my favorite, but still a nice move since it can be played with bent elbow (punch) or straight arm (sweep).

Sgt Slaughter (Robert Remus) 

Something I never understood, how is it possible, that such a unsympathetic character was based on one of Hasbro´s G.I.Joes. The character is the G.I.Joe team drill inspector, a very hard guy, but one of the heroes nevertheless. However, the wrestler was more like a villian. The figure is very nice and very different from the rest of characters, with a complete unique cast. The figure performs an attack with both arms at the same time.

Earthquake (John Tenta) 

Earthquake was another heavyweight wrestler, it was pretty amazing watching this type of wrestler in action. Earthquake was a rather nasty wrestler at the time, for his enmity with Hulk Hogan. The figure has a classic mechanism, in which it performs an attack with both arms at the same time. In previous waves, "dick" wrestlers (André the Giant, Akeem and Dusty Rhodes) had another mechanism, which proved to be very fragile, so from wave 3 on, this feature was not used in any figure more. The outfit chosen for the figure is the one used as part of the "Natural Disasters" tag-team.

Typhoon (Fred Ottman)

Typhoon is the same wrestler, who was previously named Tugboat. In his first years, Tugboat was a good friend of Hulk Hogan, but at some point they became enemies. Later he formed the "Natural Disasters" tag-team with Earthquake, which was quite successful. This figure is identical to Earthquake except for the head.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: BIG BOSSMAN #2, SGT. SLAUGHTER, EARTHQUAKE and TYPHOON
• Toy Line: Official WWF (Wave 3)
• Year: 1992
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 12 cm