#1060 PINMARK - VOLVO 760 (Nr. 001) (Around 1985)

This is another extreme die-cast rarity made by the company Pinmark in Poland. I found it in a flea market in Austria and I have seen it also on the Internet, although there seems to be only a few units remaining worldwide. 

I have seen pictures of this model in red or pink "Straz", green "Police" or white "Red Cross", but all of them with holes in the roof for a couple of sirens. This other toy that I have does not present the holes and comes with two stickers (one on the roof, another one in the bonnet) which are a racing number (RN34) and Pirelli logos, a bit in the style of rally cars. It is the only one of its kind that I have seen so far. The packaging (an important source of information) is unknown so far, so I cannot provide any remarks about Pinmark, the company that made them. The car is marked with number 001 in the base. Were there other models available? Was the numbering system (001 to, hypothetically, 999) a bit too ambitious?

The paintwork seems to be of very low quality, all cars I saw on the internet (except one) are playworn, and the interior is hidden by dark green windows. At the same time, the opening trunk is a sign of quality and the metallic base gives it some weight, which makes it looks like a more qualitative product in your hands. It is also noteworth that the base is painted black, when it would have been cheaper to leave it unpainted.

When it was new, I guess it looked great. We have to consider that, when it was made, Poland was still under a communist regime with limited access to foreign goods and raw materials, everything was done inland for the national market, which was closed to every other foreign toymaker, except maybe those of other socialist regimes. 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: VOLVO 760 (Nr. 001)
• Scale: 1:64
• Year: Around 1985
• Company: Pinmark (Poland)
• Size: approx. 7 cm

#1059 RONSON - RONSON REPEATER (Around 1922)

Ronson is, in principle, not a toy manufacturing company. They are world-wide known for making cigarette lighters, being one of the most important manufacturers by quality and market share.

My father collects gasoline lighters and he bought this one by mistake, thinking it was actually a lighter, but it is not. It is a toy gun that works with the same powderstrip that some kind of lighters also use. It produces a red flash and a soft sound and it seems to be the predecessor of the guns I knew as a kid which worked with plastic powder caps, and which action figure collectors may know from Thunder Punch He-Man from the masters of the Universe.

It is a very old gun, I have seen marked it in professional auction sites as mid-30s, but I have also found newspapers adds from 1922 or 1926, highlighting that it is completely harmless. The price in 1922 was 25 cents of a dollar, and you could get 1.000 shots for 1 more cent. For some reason, this product (and other similar ones) were broadly advertised on the newspapers, a simple internet search revealed dozens of pages like the following.

I can imagine, it was a great success at the time (the advertising says, they sold 100,000 a week before they started a national advertising campaign for it), there must be millions of them still around that have survived until today. So, it is not a complete rarity, but it is still around 100 years old. This makes it one of the two oldest toys presented in this blog so far. Despite the age, they are not expensive to find today.

Back to the product, the gun is completely made of metal and painted/lacked in black. The metal casting increases the detail level and it is also used to mark it as a Ronson product. My gun is still in a good shape, although the paint has been scratched (and is now partially lost) when playing with it. At the time there were no restrictions on toy guns, and, for example, the tip of it did not have to be painted red, so it really looks like a real gun. Other models I have seen in the Internet are in better shape.

 The body of the gun is marked with patent indications, as you can see in the next picture.

 

I didn´t have the chance so far to test it with the appropriate powder caps, as they are very rare nowadays, but it fits well in my hand. For adults, it looks like one of those lady guns that often appear in detective movies from the 1950s or before, which were much smaller than the male models.

This was one of the original boxes in which it was sold (picture taken from invaluable.com)

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: RONSON REPEATER
• Year: Around 1922
• Company: Ronson / The Art Metal Works (U.S.A.)
• Size: Around 14 cm

#1058 MOTU NA – ARTILLA/WEAPONSTRONIC and STAGHORN (Ref. 1639 and 5804) (1991)

It is a long long time since I talked about this line for the last time, so it is now time to take out some of these figures and take nice pictures of them. We have selected this time Artilla and Staghorn, two characters from the third wave of the toyline, still easy to find, and not especially expensive, although rarer than other figures from wave 1 and 2. If you are looking for them carded, then, they may be worth a lot of money.

Artilla / Weaponstronic (Ref. 1639):

I put these two together because they are kind of difficutl to play with. Artilla has a strange position of the legs, and a lot of weight on the upper part of the body, so if the figure has been played with and the legs are a bit loose, it is very difficult to pose in a given position. Also the position of the arms is not the best choice. 

On the positive side, the figure came without accessories, or, said in another way, integrated on the body or head. The action feature is cool, no complaints about that. The missile on the left hand is not detachable, it is more like a ram that only goes a few centimeters out of the fist. The weapon on the right hand is only hidden below and has to be turned to the front, and, finally, the head rams to the front, but, again, only 1 centimeter more or less. The character is also quite cool, as a robotic master of weapons and technical helper (maybe a mechanic) of He-Man´s team.

Staghorn (Ref. 5804):

Staghorn is also less poseable than the average figure, as his legs are bent on the knees and also the arms are bent on the elbows. If he is wearing his mask, then in is even less poseable, as it interferes and crashes with his arms or the axe accessory. I do not quite follow what is the intention behind that action feature. According to the backcard, the spikes of the accessory are intended for hand to hand/close range fights, both for attack or defence. Maybe the intention, if I interprete the text on the packaging correctly, was that the mechanism could lift an enemy figure and throw it into the air.

In this case, the design is also OK, Staghorn could be some kind of ogre, as there were many in the original He-Man cartoon series or comic books, only with a futuristic twist, as everything in this toyline has.

So, not the best designs, but they look nice in the shelves with the rest of the team.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: ARTILLA/WEAPONSTRONIC and STAGHORN (Ref. 1639 and 5804)
• Toy Line: He-Man (also New Adventures of He-Man) (Wave 3)
• Year: 1991
• Company: Mattel (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 14 cm

#1057 PIATNIK - MOTORPOWER GIFT BOX (Around 2000)

I always try to put a limit to my collections, and in the case of card decks it is the presence of a barcode in the box. If it has a barcode, I consider it is "too new" to be collected. However, I keep making exceptions when I find cards that I like, especially if they are car/racing/Formula 1-themed.

I bought this box in a flea market in 2015. It was made by Piatnik in the early 2000s (I could date the set paying attention to the car models and especially to the formula one teams and sponsors). It contains three technical quartet decks, the same that were also available loose, but the box adds some value to the set. It was probably intended as a gift-pack or something similar. At this time, the individual sets were sold for very few euros, so I also assume that this box was also quite affordable back then. The deck included are:

Let´s check the cards one deck after the other.

Cars (Nr. 422829)

Formel 1 (Nr. 422928)

Motor Show (Nr. 423826)

Interestingly, none of the cars that appear in the outer box is also represented in a card of any of the three decks.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: MOTORPOWER GIFT BOX includes (CARS No. 422829, FORMEL 1 No. 422928 and MOTOR SHOW No. 423826)
• Year: Around 2000
• Company: Piatnik (Austria)

#1056 MATCHBOX - OFFICIAL MATCHBOX SERIES COLLECTOR'S CASE (1968)

Another entry devoted to Matchbox die-cast, and another entry dealing with something unusual, as it is this carrying case from the mid to late 60s. I have seen many of these in Austria, but strangely, never saw any in Spain. I always wanted to have at least one to classify some die-cast models, although, in the meanwhile, I have discovered more efficient ways to store them in less space.

The box is made of plastic and comes with a (now useless) metal closing tab. It is decorated with the front of a matchbox box "regular wheels" showing the Ford GT model. I cannot see it very well as its previous owner put a sticker on top of it, that I didn´t want to remove (it is also representative of the time, as it is an appeal to bring more security to the conscripts doing the military service in Austria). There are several models of this case, each of them with different pictures in the front.

The interior has space for four stackable trays of plastic, each of them with capacity for 12 cars, although, depending on the models, you can squeeze two in the space of one. There were other types of cases (less common ones) with capacity for 12, 24, 72 or 96 models. The plastic body can be flattened for reasons which are unknown to me: it is too small to act as a playing mat and it is not decorated in the inside.

Other shapes and materials are not covered in this listing. Consider there were some made of paper or plastic, with the shape of a trailer truck, or a steering wheel. Some had removable trays, other had them fixed. Matchbox has been active during many years, and there was a lot of experimentation and fun invested also in these side-products.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: OFFICIAL MATCHBOX SERIES COLLECTOR'S CASE
• Scale: For 1:64/3 inches cars
• Year: 1968
• Company: Matchbox (Great Britain)
• Size: approx. 32x27x9 cm

#1055 GO-BOTS - HANS-CUFF (MR-13) and SLICKS (MR-32) (1983 and 1984)

The first model today is a police car called Hans-Cuff or Police-Robo (MR-13). It belongs to the first series from 1983. It represents a Toyota Crown S110, which I tend to guess that it was used as a police car in Japan in the 80s. The car looks great, and the robot transformation is simple and nice. It has the same construction as many transforming robots that turn into cars.

As a general rule, I think that Go-Bots took special care on the alternate-forms of the robots, which are much nice than the alternate forms of Takara/Hasbro´s Transformers (personal opinion here).

The Formula 1 represents a Renault F1 from the early 80s and its called Slicks, although it is also known as F1-Robo or Renault Man (MR-32). It was part of the second series from 1984. As you probably know, the term slicks refer to the tires used in the speed racing championships, especially those used for good weather conditions which had no thread pattern at all (they are completely flat for a better grip). 

 

The Go-Bot behind it is rather complex, and difficult to transform. Due to its many parts, it is difficult to let it stand in a particular position, as, with the use, some connections or articulations are a bit loose. Still, as shown in the pictures, it looks truly great also in robot form.

Both robots were designed and commercialized by Tonka in 1983 in US, Canada and Japan and one year later by Bandai in other parts of the world, maybe with some colour changes or variations. The original Slicks was partly black, while this European Machine Robo version is completely yellow.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: HANS-CUFF (MR-13) and SLICKS (MR-32)
• Toy Line: Go-Bots
• Year: 1983 and 1984
• Company: Bandai (Japan)
• Size of the figures: Approx. 7-9 cm length