#117 HASBRO’S WWF – HULK HOGAN #1, ANDRÉ “THE GIANT”, “MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE #1 and ULTIMATE WARRIOR #1 (1990)

Hasbro got the license to turn into action figures the most famous wrestlers from the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) that, at this time, was at the peak of its popularity. There had never been more famous and charismatic wrestlers than Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior or Macho Man.

Years before, other figures were made by companies like LJN. More precisely, LJN built several series of wrestlers between 1984 and 1989, but these figures were made of rubber plastic and didn’t move at all.

Galoob also had their own wrestlers, made in PVC and without any articulation point. These were sold as "WCW wrestlers" between 1990 and 1991. 

Many wrestlers had their figures in two series, the one by LJN and the one by Hasbro, or the one by Galoob and later the one by Hasbro.

As you can imagine, such a popular collection had hundreds of knock-offs and look-alike figures. Most of these have very bad quality and could be found in “1 Euro shops”, kiosk, tobacconists, and so on. Some exceptions were quality toys, like Simba’s Wrestlers.

In Spain, this toys were released with a two years delay, I used to watch the program on TV every Sunday morning, so when the figures came out, I quickly got a few to play with. The first figures (first wave) were around 500 pesetas (3,00 Eur), later waves increased slowly their prices. If I can remember properly, I got 6 figures from the first wave, 2 from the second and 1 from the third… I am almost sure that the figures from 5^th wave on were never available in Spain, but since they were available in other countries like Germany and Austria (were, by the way, there were and there are many wrestling fanatics even today), I got to buy most figures in this collection.

First Hasbro's WWF wave

In this article and the next two, I want to show the first wave, released in 1990. This wave consisted of 12 wrestlers, so I’ll show 4 of them on each entry.

1. Hulk Hogan #1 with Gorilla Press Slam!

Hulk Hogan is the greatest star of wrestling so far, the good guy, the one that always plays fair, This figure was probably the best selling figure in the whole Hasbro collection. The figure came with open hands to allow the featured action of holding and knocking off one other figure. This movement was repeated many times during the 11 series that were released.

2. André the Giant with Giant Jolt!

André the Giant retired in 1990, and was more popular during the eighties than at this time. He was one of the figures which I didn’t know who they were in 1992. The other two were Akeem and Brutus Beefcake. The figure however looks great, and is one of the most “wanted” from this first series. His “action” movement is a chest-slam, what makes it a relatively fragile figure (compared with other in this collection)

BONUS: Spanish filecard

3. Macho Man Randy Savage #1 with Elbow Smash!

Macho Man (later Macho King) was also among the most popular wrestlers, and had several versions of him made. The movement is the same that features Hulk Hogan, but Macho Man has not open hands but fists. These movement is also featured by many other figures.

 

BONUS: Spanish filecard

4. Ultimate Warrior #1 with Ultimate Smash!

One of the greatest stars of wrestling ever… by the time these figures were released, it was absolutely number 2 in popularity after Hulk Hogan. Had many fans because of his look and his great style of fighting. The figure has on its back a flap that you can push to make the figure jump. The chest part of the figure goes down to its feet showing a strange and not very well done neck (the “spine” of the figure) (see pic). The movement is absolutely great when it comes to play with, and was the featured action of many figures from wave 1 to 10.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: HULK HOGAN #1, ANDRÉ “THE GIANT”, “MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE #1 and ULTIMATE WARRIOR #1
• Alternate Names: HULK HOGAN, ANDRÉ EL GIGANTE, MACHO KING*, EL ULTIMO GUERRERO (Spain)
• Toy Line: Official WWF (Wave 1)
• Year: 1990
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 12 cm or 4,5’’

*As a result of that delay of 2 years that the figures took to arrive to Spain, Macho Man #1 was already renamed to Macho King.

As an annex, I include a list of all produced figures ordered by year and series. I hope all of them (or almost) will be appearing in this blog in the next years… The list is based on the one published by sophandjames in “ebay.co.uk guides”.

Series 1 (1990)

• 1. Hulk Hogan #1
• 2. Andre the Giant
• 3. Macho Man Randy Savage #1
• 4. Ultimate Warrior #1
• 5. Jake the Snake Roberts (with snake “Damien”)
• 6. Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase #1 (with million dollar belt)
• 7. Brutus the Barber Beefcake #1 (with red shears)
• 8. Ravishing Rick Rude
• 9. Big Boss Man #1 (with stick)
• 10. Akeem
• 11. Ax of Demolition
• 12. Smash of Demolition #1

Series 2 (1991)

• 13. Hulk Hogan # 2
• 14. 'Macho King' Randy Savage #2 (with crown & sceptre)
• 15. Ultimate Warrior #2
• 16. Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase #2 (with million dollar belt)
• 17. Rowdy Roddy Piper
• 18. Superfly Jimmy Snuka
• 19. Honky Tonk Man (with guitar)
• 20. Hacksaw Jim Duggan #1 (with 2x4)
• 21A. Dusty Rhodes [Rare] (with white boots)
• 21B. Dusty Rhodes [Very Rare] (with yellow boots)

Tag Teams

• 22 and 23. Bushwackers Butch and Luke
• 24 and 25. Demolition Crush #1 and Smash #2 [re-issue] (both with helmets)
• 26 and 27. Rockers Shawn Michaels #1 and Marty Jannetty #1

Series 3 (1992)

• 28. Hulk Hogan #3
• 29. 'Macho Man' Randy Savage #3 (with crown and sceptre, same as #2 with logo in trunks)
• 30. Ultimate Warrior #3
• 31. Big Bossman #2 (with nightstick)
• 32. Brutus the Barber Beefcake #2 (with black shears)
• 33. Mr Perfect #1
• 34. Koko B.Ware (with Frankie-parrot)
• 35. Greg the Hammer Valentine
• 36. Sgt Slaughter
• 37. Texas Tornado
• 38. Earthquake
• 39. Typhoon

Tag Teams

• 40 and 41. Legion of Doom Animal and Hawk
• 42 and 43. Nasty Boys Brian Knobbs and Jerry Saggs

Series 4 (1992)

• 44A. Bret Hitman Hart #1 (pink heart on vest)
• 44B. Bret Hitman Hart #1 [Very Rare] (purple heart on vest -factory error-)
• 45. British Bulldog
• 46A. Undertaker #1 (grey trim)
• 46B. Undertaker #1 [Rare] (purple trim)
• 47. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat (with 'wings')

Series 5 (1993)

• 48. Hulk Hogan #4
• 49. Macho Man Randy Savage #4
• 50. I.R.S.
• 51. Jim the Anvil Neidhart
• 52. Mountie (with cattle prod)
• 53. Rick the Model Martel
• 54. Sid Justice
• 55. Virgil
• 56. Skinner
• 57. Warlord

Series 6 (1993)

• 58. Berzerker (with brown cloak)
• 59. Repo Man
• 60. Papa Shango (with skull necklace)
• 61. El Matador
• 62. Ric Flair
• 63. Tatanka #1

Series 7 (1993)

• 64. Crush #2
• 65. Owen Hart
• 66. Nailz
• 67. Razor Ramon #1 (with chain)
• 68. Shawn Michaels #2
• 69. Kamala (Star on belly)
• 70. Kamala [Very Rare, only 24 ever made] (Moon on belly)

Series 8 (1994)

• 71. Bret Hitman Hart #2
• 72. Mr Perfect #2
• 73. Lex Luger
• 74. Bam Bam Bigelow
• 75. Undertaker #2 (with coat, Same as #1, but with dark hair and beard)
• 76. Yokozuna #1

Series 9 (1994)

• 77. Hacksaw Jim Duggan #2 (with USA flag)
• 78. Million Dollar Man #3
• 79. Tatanka #2 [re-issue]
• 80. Rick Steiner
• 81. Scott Steiner
• 82. Doink the Clown

Series 10 (1994)

• 83. Marty Jannetty #2
• 84. Giant Gozalez
• 85. Samu of Headshrinkers
• 86. Fatu of Headshrinkers
• 87. Butch of Bushwackers #2 (with cap)
• 88. Luke of Bushwackers #2 (with cap)
• 89. Razor Ramon #2 (with chain) [re-issue]
• 90. Razor Ramon # 3 [Rare] (with chain)
• 91. Shawn Michaels #3 [re-issue]
• 92. Shawn Michaels #4 [Rare]

Series 11 (1994)

• 93. Crush #3
• 94. Ludvig Borga
• 95. 1-2-3 Kid
• 96. Adam Bomb
• 97. Bart Gunn of Smoking Gunns
• 98. Billy Gunn of Smoking Gunns
• 99. Yokozuna #2

Mailaways (1993)

• 100. Hulk Hogan #5 (same as #3 but with red Hulkamania Shirt)
• 101. Bret Hitman Hart #3 (same as #1 but with purple heart)
• 102. Undertaker #3 (same as #1 but with light brown hair and Eye Shadow)

#116 TFTP UPDATES!

The following articles have been updated with new pics in the last two months. If you liked them, you can visit them again!

#2 MERCURY - AGUSTA M.V. 350 cc. GRAN PREMIO 3 CILINDRI (around 1973)

#7 TRANSFORMERS - MICROMASTERS OVERLOAD (1989)

#8 MATCHBOX – MERCEDES BENZ ‘BINZ’ AMBULANCE (1967)

#13 SCALEXTRIC – PORSCHE 917 (Ref. C-46 or 4046) (1972)

#21 REAL GHOSTBUSTERS – FRIGHT FEATURES’ EGON SPENGLER and WINSTON ZEDDMORE (1988)

#28 MADELMAN 2050 – DARMAN, BRAN and KARSAN (1988)

#54 SIKU - LAMBORGHINI 400GT ESPADA and VW-PORSCHE 914-6 (Ref. V317 and V312) (1971 and 1970) - This entry had disappeared for some reason I don't know. Now it's available again, however the quality of the pictures are much worse, since I had to "recover" them from a word file.

#62 MICRO MACHINES – TRAVEL CITY PLAYSETS: BODY SHOP (1988) and CYCLE SHOP (1989)

#85 PAYVA - CLOCKWORK TANK (Around 1968)

#103 GUILOY – CHOPPER SPECIAL “WILD CAT” (Ref. 274) (1975)

#105 THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS – FEARSOME FLUSH and FULL SPEED AHEAD GHOST (1989)

#111 MATCHBOX vs. JOAL – TAYLOR JUMBO CRANE/ CANGURO (1961/ Around 1968)

The toys for trade section has also been updated with new things I'd like to get rid of.

#115 PENNY – FERRARI 36 V F.1, HONDA V 12 F.1, MC. LAREN – FORD 8V – F.1 and LOTUS – BRM H 16 – F.1 (Nrs. 0/9, 0/10, 0/12 and 0/15) (1967 and 1968)

This article continues the previous two ones. To add some “text” to it, I´d like to comment that these models are quite fragile, maybe that is the reason for which they’re so rare to find mint. Note in the pictures below, that some of these cars are missing parts, for example the exhaust pipes (nr. 0/6), the windshield and steering wheel (0/12) or in the case of number (0/15) both the windshield and the exhaust pipe. Nr. 0/15 is the only model I have that is not mint and boxed, and was bought around 12 years ago in a flea market, knowing nothing about Penny. Pay attention to these three parts when buying one of them!

The chromed steering wheel part and the windshield seems to be interchangeable (I didn’t tried it, but it seems clear to me that it can be done), so a model you already own can be used to repair another one. The exhaust pipes are a complete different story, since each model has different ones.

Another interesting point of these Penny models is that they were released by many other companies in other countries. In a future entry I will talk about the Spanish replicas made by Redondo, from which I own two of them (well, one and half). Other companies to release Penny Replicas were Remco, Zylmex, Mego or AHM, most of them based in Hong-Kong.

FERRARI 36 V F.1 (0/9)
Pilot: John Surtees


HONDA V 12 F.1 (0/10)
Pilot: Richie Ginther


MC. LAREN – FORD 8V – F.1 (0/12)
Pilot: Bruce McLaren - Unfortunately missing the windshield and steering wheel part


LOTUS – BRM H 16 – F.1 (0/15)
Pilot: Jim Clark - Unfortunately missing a exhaust pipe and the windshield.


FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: FERRARI 36 V F.1 (0/9), HONDA V 12 F.1 (0/10), MC. LAREN – FORD 8V – F.1 (0/12) and LOTUS – BRM H 16 – F.1 (0/15)
• Scale: 1:66 (approx.)
• Year: 1967 and 1968
  
• Company: Penny/ Politoys/ Polistil (Italia)
• Size: 6 cm

#114 PENNY – BRABHAM – F.1, COOPER MASERATI F.1, EAGLE TIG F.1 and BRM H 16 F.1 (Nrs. 0/5, 0/6, 0/7 and 0/8) (1967)

As you can observe in the picture above and the pictures in the previous entry, Penny cars were sold in a cardboard box with a drawing of the car on the front. The Penny logo was a pence coin with the name on it and a checkered stripe. On the flaps of the box the name of the car and the number was printed.

Numbering of this 1:66 series started with 0/1, this means that the formulas you’re watching are the first Politoys ever in 1:66 scale. The first 15 models are all formula 1s: the first 10 released in 1967 the other 5 released 1968. This first Penny series was available between 1967 and 1971 (other sources of informations say 1965-1971), but There were other series too: numbers 0/21 to 0/205 are production and concept cars; and numbers between 0/110 and 0/122 are industrial vehicles. Not every reference was actually produced and sold, some numbers never had its corresponding model.


If you pay attention to these boxes, you’ll be able to notice the two different versions of the box: I guess one was for 1967 and the other one for 1968. The older one is on the upper side of the picture and announces the coming of the “Berlina series”. In the newer box that sentence has been replaced by Ferrari F.1, since in 1968 the berlina series had already been released. Curious that they took that model, because it is doubled! Maybe they forgot the “36 V” (see next entry).

Also interesting to remark is the old APS logo on the boxes' flap. There is a difference between box nr. 0/4 and the other ones. One showing the APS triangle logo, while all the other show that same logo plus the names Polistil/ Politoys/ Policars.

During those four years, different types of boxes were used to pack the cars. First one was the one in the pictures, the second one is very similar, but it included a window and a cardback with a hanger hole. The cars from the 0/200 and 0/201 series were packed in a red box, with a completely new design, featuring a drawing of the car at the back and a window on the front. From each reference were 4 cars numbered 0/200A to 0/200D and 0/201A to 0/201D.

BRABHAM – F.1 (0/5)
Pilot: Jack Brabham


COOPER MASERATI F.1 (0/6)
Pilot: Joakim Bonnier - Unfortunately missing a exhaust pipe.


EAGLE TIG F.1 (0/7)
Pilot: ?


BRM H 16 F.1 (0/8)
Pilot: Jim Clark - Read the story of the H16 motor here (interesting!)



FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: BRABHAM – F.1 (0/5), COOPER MASERATI F.1 (0/6), EAGLE TIG F.1 (0/7) and BRM H 16 F.1 (0/8)
• Scale: 1:66 (approx.)
• Year: 1967
• Company: Penny/ Politoys/ Polistil (Italia)
• Size: 6 cm

#113 PENNY – BRM – V8 – F.1, LOLA CLIMAX V8 – F.1, LOTUS – CLIMAX – F.1 and FERRARI – F.1 (Nrs. 0/1, 0/2, 0/3 and 0/4) (1967)

Penny didn’t mean anything to me before I bought these cars. They are beautiful reproductions of F1s from the 60s, so I decided to buy them… they were not cheap, but I bought them anyway. I knew I had a couple of similar cars at home that could be copied from them (I may talk about them in the future), but nothing else. When I came home I quickly checked what could be behind this mysterious brand, and then I found this was the name used by Politoys to name its 1:66 series.


In a previous entry, I explained that Politoys was founded in 1960, and started producing scale cars in plastic and 1:41 scale (they looked probably like these ones). After a few years, maybe around 1965, the company started producing its first diecast models in a similar scale (1:43), just like other companies, like Corgi, Norev or Solido were already doing.

By the first 60s, a new “player” comes in: Matchbox. The success of its 1:64 line is so huge, that the traditional toymakers mentioned above consider launching their own lines of 1:64 cars. Politoys introduced the “penny” line for this purpose. This series spans from 1967 to 1970, year in which the 1:64 models started being sold in Polistil boxes.

In that year, it is important to remember, that Politoys changes its name to Polistil. Many people argue that the reason for this was that Politoys was too similar to Palitoy, a british toymaker, and it misleaded the customers.

The “Penny” series didn’t have the success of its Matchbox counterparts. Its main market was Italy, it is believed that there weren’t much units exported to other European countries, so they are extremely rare to find, specially if they are mint and boxed.

Politoys/Polistil always had a great interest in F1 and racing emphasis, as we commented when talking about Polistil models in 1:55 and 1:41 scale. These Penny toys are the proof that this interest was always there and it was sincere.

In this entry I’d like to show the first 4 Penny models I own. In the next articles more cars will be shown. This F1 line consisted of 15 vehicles, I own 12 of them. I have included the name of the pilot just for curiosity. This information may not be 100% accurate.

BRM – V8 – F.1 (0/1)
Pilot: Graham Hill


LOLA CLIMAX V8 – F.1 (0/2)
Pilot: John Surtees (among others)


LOTUS – CLIMAX – F.1 (0/3)
Pilot: Jim Clark



FERRARI – F.1 (0/4)
Pilot: Phil Hill (among others)


FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: BRM – V8 – F.1 (0/1), LOLA CLIMAX V8 – F.1 (0/2), LOTUS – CLIMAX – F.1 (0/3) and FERRARI – F.1 (0/4)
• Scale: 1:66 (approx.)
• Year: 1967
• Company: Penny/ Politoys/ Polistil (Italia)
• Size: 6 cm