Bloggiversary Dossier: Arto's Finnish Reisler Spaceman Clones

Five years ago, I contacted a Danish toy collectors' website in the hopes of finding out more about some mysterious spaceman figures I had come across. 

Standing ca. 60 mm tall and made of soft monochrome plastic in various colours, the spacemen had a moveable right arm as an action feature.

As I already had a couple of spacemen by a Danish company Reisler in my collection, it became clear that these were copies of their set of four spacemen issued in 1954, made of hard plastic and their monochrome bodies highlighted with details in silver or gold

https://www.alphadrome.net/gallery/image/1025-rumforskere-spacemen-reisler-denmark/

As a reference, I attached to my inquiry a photo I took at the time

I never got a reply.

Fast forward to July 2025 and to the first ever Nostalgia collectors' fair held in Karkkila, Finland.

 A veteran collector friend had unearthed from his collection a set of eight Reisler spaceman clones, with helmets and all, bagged with an accompanying paper slip which revealed their Finnish importer. So there was a Finnish connection after all! 

Mystery solved!

The set contains all four Reisler poses, of which three have a moveable right arm just as in the Reisler set. 

The later Reisler reissues are only known in white, so it is still unclear if these coloured spacemen were manufactured by Reisler too.

The 22,5 x 10 cm printed paper slip which says in Finnish "Spacemen - One of Our Toy Novelties" also leaves some questions. The message seems to be aimed more to toy salesmen rather than to the consumers.

 Is the bagged set a salesman's sample or the final product? This is the only sighting of the full set by far, so the question remains.

Either way, another example of the close ties between Danish toy companies and the Finnish toy market in the 1950's, as witnessed earlier with the Space Cruiser X-300 Telex - H. Wittrock case.

Arto

Helsinki Base