Well today is such a lazy Sunny TV Sunday: Clash of the Titans this afternoon and now Ghostbusters ["I'm the Gate-Keeper, Are you the Key Master?"] I just love these kitschy 80's fantasy films. It's an advert break so just time to post a quickie. A bit like the last AHI/ Century 21 conundrum [thanks Mav and Paul] here we have a similar Cragstan/ T in a Circle pair. T in a Circle weren't a big deal in the toy world so did they copy Cragstan? Or were Cragstan another AHI outfit? I know they made the cool Mr.Atomic the robot.
Above - Cragstan Cabin Cruiser [Ebay]
Below- T in a Circle version [Woodsy]
Cragston didn't make Mr Atomic, they were merely the U.S. importer.
ReplyDeleteMost of the companies discussed in this blog were importers and had no manufacturing operations of their own.
Sean
IIRC Mr Atomic was made by Yonezawa, but Cragstan sourced toys from many Asian companies.
ReplyDeleteSean
Cheers Sean. Probably a daft question but do you think AHI were even capable of the colour change [from white to green] of the imported Moonship or would that have been beyond them and the ship must have been imported already green?
ReplyDeleteWoodsy, AHI may have requested the colour of the Moonship moulding just as C21 Toys probably specified the union flag. Such customisation was well within the capabilities of the OEMs.
ReplyDeleteGenerally the practice was for importers to attend the Hong Kong Toy Fair and negotiate for quantities of a (generally existing) toyline. These were sometimes packaged in the destination country, but that's usually as far as the importers' input went.
There were of course exceptions to this. SWORD is interesting as it seems to have taken existing toys (possibly from more than one Hong Kong manufacturer)and integrated them into a fairly cohesive series.
Spacex is also interesting as the designs originated in the UK (if the patents are anything to go by), but manufacture was sub-contracted to Hong Kong. One might say it was an early example of what has become the norm for Western toy companies these days.
Sean
Insightful Sean, thanks a bunch. Wonder if there are pictures or even footage of the Hong Kong Toy Fairs in the mid to late Sixties?
ReplyDeleteYes, the original Hong Kong toy ranges which SWORD emerged from must have been available before the launch of the Century 21 line and indeed the SOLO Comic strip in July 1967. The likeliest contenders would appear to be T in a Circle [Prospector - although the UK Patent would have to be considered here - and the Moonbus], Hover/Hoover [Space Glider, PF1, PF3, Booster Rocket]. Some SWORD are clearly NASA-influenced - Dyna Soar, Scramble Bug, Cape Kennedy, Apollo Saturn and there don't appear to be any identical older originals so C21 probably commissioned them as they clearly did for their own design, Zero X. One toy, Moon Ranger, appears to be based on a much older Japanese kit/toy by Nichimo.
I consider the US Tarheel SWORD line to be the only 'official' re-branding of the C21 range. All of this is nigh on impossible to prove and very little hard info about C21 Toys seems to exist despite corresponding direc tly with their MD, Keith Shackleton, in the 90's. Does the above general scenario seem plausible to you Sean?