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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

#671 IMPERIAL CHINA – MUDSLINGER and SWINDLER (1988)


MONTH OF THE BOOTLEG AND THE KNOCK-OFF AT TOYS FROM THE PAST!

Imperial China is the only text that can be read in these figures. I guess they were made by the late 90s in very short batches, because I haven’t seen much and on the internet there are no resources on them. Thanks to the information provided in a comment below by user Chaser, we now know that these toys are much older than we thought, almost contemporary to the toys that the copy. A blistercard has been spotted recently and the copyright is from 1988.


The only I know is that there are several micromasters knock-offs but the colours may differ a bit from the originals, and they are even smaller, maybe 20% smaller. They are even smaller than the smallest transformers ever released by Hasbro or Takara, so, all in all, nice collector pieces.



My two robots are Mudslinger (Off-Road Patrol) and Swindler (Race Car Patrol), although there are also some jets from the Air Strike Patrol and other cars from the Race Car Patrol. Some can be seen in this page: http://www.builtstlouis.net/tf/mmkos/imperial.html


FACTS and FIGURES:
  • Name: MUDSLINGER and SWINDLER
  • Toy Line: IMPERIAL CHINA
  • Year: 1988
  • Company: Imperial China (China)
  • Size of the figures: 2 to 2.5 cm
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4 comments:

  1. Hugh WalterApril 28, 2016 at 3:27 PM

    OOOhhh! shiny shiny plastic lovelyness!

    Might be larger vend-size/price capsule toys? Imperial did supply gum-ball machines with rubber 'things' in the 1970's?

    H

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    Replies
    1. GogApril 28, 2016 at 8:42 PM

      Hi Hugh!
      That was a very hot tip... I didn't think of that, but it might perfectly be the case.

      The original TF robots were made in 1989, so these are from the 90s. I am dating them "late 90s" because of the other toys in a lot, so not sure if it is really the same "Imperial"?

      Thanks!

      BR,
      Juan

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  2. ChaserAugust 26, 2022 at 11:10 PM

    1997? Then why does the back of this card for the toyline say 1988? https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-1988-imperial-toys-3776868074

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    Replies
    1. GogAugust 27, 2022 at 5:49 AM

      Hi, chaser, First of all, thanks for the comment. I do not know anymore why undated them 1997, I guess it is related to the other toys I found with these, a guess depending of style, quality and condition or who sold them to me or whatever. The article is from 2016, and at the time, there was not much information I could fin fom them. Most of the current info about toys is quite new on the internet, so my blog entries grow old as time passes, not to mention information about bootlegs toys... I'll be glad to correct the information soon, as I prefer older toys than newer ones.thabks for the link and the corrections!

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