#1092 MONSTERS OF THE GALAXY – FLASH (Art. 8422) (1985)

The Monsters of the Galaxy is an Italian Masters of the Universe knock-off line. It is very rare even in its country of origin, so you may have never heard of it before. I once found a cardboard in a flea market, and later bought this figure with almost all its accesories in an auction in Austria. As you can see, there were nine figures in total plus two beasts. All figures seems to come with a very impressive helmet, and some include unusual accesories like cloth cloaks and cloth boots. They come in different colours as it is common in action figure collections. Some has a minimal background information, such as "Defender of Aeterna", but most of them lack of any reference. Three of them have monstruous heads, while the other 6 have human faces, sometimes hidden unter strange helmets or headwear, so it is left to the kid if the figure is a hero or a villain.

As you can observe in the pictures, the figure is unmistakenbly a MotU copy. The body parts have not been cloned, but they are very very close to the originals from Mattel. I would say the head is inspired by that of Clamp Champ, but if in that case, the year I have seen referred as the release date of the figures (1985) cannot be accurate, as Clamp Champ is a figure from 1986. The accesories are not copied, but pretty much respect the style of the line they are trying to imitate.

This character's name is Flash, and resembles a bit Spikor. It has a similar body colour and, despite missing it's trident-arm, it comes with a helmet with five spikes. Other accesories which my figure still has are a light blue harness and a spiked-shield. Unfortunately, it is missing an axe.

The figure and its accesories are completely unmarked, so many people who came accross them had a hard time identifying them. Now with the reverse search of search machines and AI tools should be easier, but I didn't make the test yet.

 

The manufacturer is Camy, a completely unknown company from Palazzolo sull'Oglio, a locality between Bergamo and Brescia, in the Lombardy. This is a really small town, and the company was probably also a very small business, so the number of figures out there has to be very low. The very few that are for sale on eBay at the time of writing this article cost 250 euro (figure with harness and helmet), 330 (figure with harness) to 950 euro (complete figure with all accesories). Loose accesories go for around 30 euro/piece. Even if you had the money to buy the figures it would cost you a lot of time to wait for all the items (it is 9 figures plus two beasts) to pop-up in that platform or other platforms online.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: FLASH (ART. 8422)
• Toy Line: Monsters of the Galaxy
• Year: 1985
• Company: Camy (Italy)
• Size of the figures: Around 14 cm tall

#1091 UNKNOWN MANUFACTURER - THREE F1 CORGI BOOTLEGS (Around 1974)

To continue an old tradition, I use the month of April to show toys that are knock-off or bottlegs of other toys. This time I want to present three big scale formula ones that copy Corgi casts. They are made in Hong-Kong around 1974 and use a four digit code system as a reference number. 

Most accurately, These three are:

No 7501 - SURTEES T.S.9 F.1. (Based on Corgi Nr. 150)

No. 7502 - FERRARI 312 B2  (based on Corgi 152 from 1972)

No. 7503 - LOTUS F.1.  (based on Corgi 154 from 1973)

I first thought these would be Yatming, but the codes does not seem to fit with the numbering system used by that company.

I have seen several for sale on the internet, so they are not extremely rare. Compared to the original Corgis, they are also very good. Only the colour slightly differs. The wheels are clearly cheaper and less detailed compared to the original ones, which is the main flaw I see in these four cars. Also the overall quality of the paintwork and the stickers is worse. These seem to have been heavily played, but I still consider them worth enough for my collection.

If you have some information on the manufacturer of these toys, please let me know by writing a comment to this entry. I have been looking for boxed models for sale, but I couldn´t find any. Over the years I have also posted many toys which are yet to be identified. If you want to have a look at them and try to guess which company made them, click on this link Unknown Manufacturer Toys.

 FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: SURTEES T.S.9 F.1., FERRARI 312 B2 and LOTUS F1 (No. 7501, 7502 and 7503)
• Scale: 1:36
• Year: Around 1974
• Company: Unknown Toymaker (Hong Kong)
• Size: Around 10 cm long