This post biulds on several older posts about googley eyed Hong Kong toys.
Always looking for JR21 styled Hong Kong plastic animals [I've just finished writing a book about them in particular] last year I spotted this more general non-JR21 plastic cute animal in a bag.
Its part of the Cartoon Animals range made in Hong Kong by LN which includes a bunny, a kitten, a puppy and a baby mouse.
Typical of the Sixties/ early Seventies, they are pictured on a lunar background and as such can justly be called space toys. This one is numbered 403A. There may also be a nod towards early Disney cartoons in the way they look. Would you agree?
I had thought initially this animal was the bunny. However the animals are given letters on the header card, A,B,C and D. This header card is numbered 403A. If the A refers to the animal lettering then this particular animal should be a mouse!
The evidence against this idea is the colour, the mouse would surely be white and it would also have a long tail as pictured. This animal is red and has a short white tail.
It is more likely to be the bunny rabbit after all I feel.
Have the packers put the wrong header on the wrong animal?
The A in 403A may not even refer to the four letters printed on the animal pictures, ABC and D at all.
Blog friend and collector Arto has previously shed some light on the letter C in his brilliant 2018 post about LN brand space vehicles - and suggested it might mean 'Carded'.
Keen-eyed Arto then spotted another Hong Kong animal, which was also numbered 403, the same as the LN toy above.
Except this one was made by the much better known LP brand!
Arto suggests that it may be likely that these same animals were released both under LN and LP brands.
To confuse matters even more LP also issued another space dog with a different number, 108. This was issued both boxed and bagged. Arto suggests that the A in the numbering might mean that the toy was bagged, which he blogged about 2 years ago.
Arto has kindly shared this picture of both his LP space dogs, the smaller one 403 and the larger one with yellow vest, 108.
The LP-LN brands connection needs further research.
If anyone has any information about it or more LN toys or googley eyed Hong Kong animals I would be happy to share it on the blog.
As a fascinating and previously blogged footnote Paul V discusses the amazing link between the ball rollers below these toys and their use in other LP space toys. You can read it and much more about LP toys on Paul's site here
must be the bunny with ears like that! Looks like his nose has come loose too!
ReplyDeleteYou know Wote, I don't think they look like Bunny ears!
DeleteReally interesting finds, and I love the fact that the header illustrations show these cute lil animals hopping about in outer space! Why? Why not!
ReplyDeleteha ha, space hoppers Zigg! Everything was in space in the sixties!
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