#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

#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

#1050 PRAISE UNLIMITED - NINJA (1985)

Praise Unlimited is an American toy manufacturer that is best known for producing biblical action figures of David, Goliath and Judah. They also produced other kinds of toys, mostly dolls in two different sizes and maybe other action figures, such as these Ninjas that are very similar to Hasbro’s (or Child’s Play’s) Ninja Warriors.

I analyzed this topic in depth in the issue #30 of Figuras En Acción. Take a look at it if you want to see and read much more about this brand/brands.

Very little is known about the company or the toy figure line, except that production was carried out in Hong Kong by Solidco and imported to Europe by companies like Hans Postler from Germany. We know that the company owners were Sue Fust y Chas Fust, who were fundamentalist Christians from Atlanta. They claimed that the Smurfs were witchcraft based. 

Other products made from this company were the Scented Praise Dolls, a little bit on the wake of Strawberry Shortcake and other perfumed dolls from these years. They seem to date from 1984, and were four in total: Faith (green, African-American and rose-scented), Hope (dark hair, blue dress and orange-scented), Joy (blond hair, purple dress and orchid-scented) and Love (red-haired, red dress and strawberry scented). The Christian element in them was that, on each of their dresses, a biblical verse was written. Not the whole of it, but just the chapter and the number. The verses themselves were written on one side of the box, but could be easily found on any Bible.

Praise Unlimited is also famous for their soft dolls. Their first models were probably Hope (girl, dark hair), Faith (African-American) and Christian (boy, dark hair) from 1982. These figures came in a big box with window and included a voice box that could reproduce a short story for children with the song Jesus Loves the Little Children. At the time, Praise Unlimited also used the brand Friendship Toys, also in their biblical heroes for boys mentioned above. 

Similar to these, and from 1983, was Grace (blond hair), which is sometimes referred as the Anti-abortion doll, just because the dress she is wearing shows the following biblical verses (Galatians 1: 15-16): "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me " This doll came accompanied of a voice box that reproduced a recording of Pat Boone reproducing pro-life statements.

A few years later, probably by 1988, the company also produced the dolls Joy (blond hair) and Hope (dark hair). These figures could kneel and place their hands in praying position, and were distributed by a company called Rainfall, Inc. Their construction was somewhat different, as their hands are also soft and they do not include the voice box.

And now, lets go to the Ninja figures that are the subject of this blog entry. First of all, Are they really made by Praise Unlimited? My guess is that they are not a product of this company, because it is not fitting at all with the product range they were offering when they were active. As the action figures of Judah, David and Goliath were made by Solidco in Hong-Kong, the casts most probably were abandoned by the American company and maybe reused without modification by a new owner or customer. If Praise did not exist anymore as a company, this was probably not an issue. For clarity purposes, I will still name them as Praise Unlimited Ninjas in the title of this article, so people interested in this figure line find this text more easily.

The Ninjas from Praise Unlimited came with a big bunch of accessories, some of which were very similar to those of Ninja Warriors, while others were much simpler.

There were only four figures made in this collection. I am missing a dark blue one. Although the toy line is called Ninja, some of the characters I know from this toy line seem to be based on Japanese samurais. All of them came with a piece of cloth (woven partly with shiny or metallic threads) and a belt made of an elastic band. These two elements are the ones which are more often missing. The first of these is especially fragile. The cast of all figures in this row, except the heads is shared with David, the Shepperd Boy, that is why the legs are kind of strange.

The figures are extremely rare to find (mostly considering that they are marked on the back), and even rarer with all their accessories. I bought mine several years ago from eBay and was a bit disappointed because it was slightly sticky when I bought it. This defect is due to the degradation of some plastic components of low quality. Other more famous toy lines, such as Masters of the Universe, also show this problem. I remember cleaning the figure with soap and improving the situation a bit, but it is still slightly sticky. I think this cannot be solved.

In the previous two pictures, you can see two of these figures side by side with Hasbro's or Child Play's Ninja Warriors. Very similar, yet inferior due to its limited articualtion points and overall quality.

And this a summary of what I could find about this toyline. There are a few more facts and many other comments on the toylines made by Praise and Rainfall in the magazine Figuras En Acción Nr.30, just in case you want to check it. Any other information not covered there is welcome!

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: NINJA
• Alternate Names: NINJA KÄMPFER (German)
• Toy Line: Ninja Warriors
• Year: 1985
• Company: Praise Unlimited/Unknown (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 15 cm approx.

#1049 KEES - FIAT PANDA and TY-PHOO JUBILEE TRAM (Around 1985)

Kees is a brand that Steven (from the Motorcade) showed me a couple of years ago, and I have this model thanks to him. He showed me this model in a picture, and was immediately interested, because I thought it was a Fiat Uno from the first generation. Unfortunately, after looking at it from all angles, I think it is most probably a Fiat Panda. The cast is not very good, as you can imagine from my previous comment.

The die-cast model has a plastic base, no interior, a relatively bad paintwork and paper stickers. It is a rather typical novelty toy of the early 90s. And among these, we could consider it a "good" one.

If this is so, its current value can only be explained by their scarcity. On top of that, the car is not marked anyway, so most of these go undetected in the Internet markets, and those who can be identified, are quite pricey. I don't think I will ever have more of these, I won´t pay so much money for such a model and having one piece is enough for me.

Another thing to comment, it that Kees seems to base many of their die-cast on Polistil models from those years, but I guess there is no connection between them.

I have here this nice advertising page presenting the main products that the company was offering in 1985, as well as other useful information for potential clients.

And because we have this advertisement sheet, we know that the following item is also made by Kees. It is a London Tram with Ty-Phoo Tea decals. Ty-Phoo is a British brand of tea, still on the market. I am not quite sure if this jubilee applies to the tea company, to the first service of the tram reproduced (in the back it says it started in 1885, but in the front it says 1905 (so, is it an 80 or 100 years jubilee?) In any case, it is a very nice model, specially in its cardboard packaging. I had to fix it a bit, but it looks nice now for display.

I tend to think it is a promotional item, as Kees is not mentioned in the packaging, and Ty-Phoo logo appears in quite a big size in the package. Antoher clue could be that there are many for sale on eBay and at very low prices, so most likely it was a giveaway from that brand of tea.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: FIAT PANDA and TY-PHOO TEA JUBILEE TRAM
• Scale: Around 1:64 / Around 1:120
• Year: Around 1985
• Company: Kees (Hong-Kong)
• Size: approx. 7 cm

#1045 FX SCHMID – GRAND PRIX, PS AUF SCHIENEN and BUSSE (1984 and 1985)

This entry will be a lazy one, as I will only be presenting three new mini decks of cards made by FX Schmid, similar to other I have shown in the past and which have the checkered flag pattern in the cover card. The “Minis” in this entry are slightly more modern (see #857 and #858, which includes a more modern version of Grand Prix), and I also showed some big decks with the checkered pattern before (see #736).

As usual in the mini quartet decks, there are only 6 families instead of 8, and that makes 24 cards plus the cover card.

The first two were released in 1984, the last on in 1985. I like them all a lot, especially the one with buses, which is a not so common theme for a quartett game.

GRAND PRIX (No. 56510.0) from 1984

PS AUF SCHIENEN (No. 56510.0) from 1984

BUSSE (No. 50044.6) from 1985

This cover card has the copyright in it, not the other two.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: GRAND PRIX, PS AUF SCHIENEN and BUSSE (No. 56510.0, 56510.0 and 50044.6)
• Year: 1984, 1984 and 1985
• Company: FX Schmid (West Germany)

#1037 EFSI – MERCEDES LONG TRAILER “SHELL” TANKER and FLATBED (around 1985)

I have presented in the past several Efsi trucks and trailers, but this is my first “long trailer” made by the Dutch company. I found it in a flea market, and I liked it a lot. It represents a long tanker from Shell, in bright yellow and red.

The truck is identical to the ones we already saw, so I am not going to comment on it. The trailer is, surprisingly, not very well done. The metallic base is reduced to a few long stabs to fit the axles and the wheels in a more or less stable way, and the tank itself is made of plastic. It looks great, but it was probably made to be sold for a rather low price. 

It is, however, a lot of fun to play with, as all die-cast long trailers are, and displays nicely along with other trucks and cars from this brand.

UPDATE (DEC.2024): Shortly after publishing this entry, I got a second "long" Efsi Truck, a flatbed, that I will present as an update. The trailer is based in the same die-cast part, only with a diffeerent part of plastic attached to it, sasving money in bigger casts and replacing zamak by plastic.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MERCEDES LONG TRAILER “SHELL” TANKER and FLATBED
• Scale: 1:87
• Year: Around 1985
• Company: EFSI (Netherlands)
• Size: approx. 15 cm