ACRO MERCHANT

I saw this online. I'm not a Micronauts collector but I assume this is a knockoff.

Its called Mecha Acro Year.

Its not a bad-looking toy. What do you think?

AURORA, MEGO AND CO: ARTO'S FANTASTIC JUTHBACKA FINDS

Arto has been kind enough to share pictures of his recent and amazing haul of vintage goodies at the Juthbacka vintage fair on the western coast of Finland.  The Juthbacka fair attracts sellers from Sweden too. 

A super post to end the summer, Feast your eyes!

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Aurora long box monster kits and Mego monsters, Super Heroes, Star Trek/ Space 1999

Assorted Super Heroes: Batcopter, Secret Wars, Super Powers and an Italian Diabolik figure, a candy box top!

Micronauts, Choc Rockets and Car [I have cropped this image and removed an amazing item that, with Arto's permission, will feature on the blog's anniversary  - our 16th bloggiversary - on September 15th. Watch this space!]

LOOEY'S LITTLE HENSHIN FROM SCRATCH

Hi Woodsie! The 80's toy nostalgia continues with my most recent art toy challenge. 

My Little Pony, anything you like as long as it had a mayne and tail! I have a big fondness for the 70's Takara Henshin Cyborg and as fate would have it, they both feature rainbows on the packaging so it was the perfect mash-up...

My first step was to 3D scan the blank resin casting so I could 3D model it as a transparent body shell.

Next I modelled a robot skeleton, complete with Shogun Warrior style missiles!

Then I sculpted half a horse's skull in Kleenclay and scanned it so I could copy and flop it for a full head.

After a lot of messing around, I successfully modelled some neck hinges and 3D printed all the components in Clear Tough UV resin.

Alclad II chrome paint gave me a pretty good approximation of vacuum metallised chrome and clear yellow Tamiya airbrushed over the skull give me metallic gold.

The all important mayne and tail were made with prismatic crystal shred.

Green Stuff World Chrome was applied to the raised lettering by brush and gave a really good simulation of hot stamped chrome foil.

Then on to the packaging! I enjoyed the creative writing challenge of producing an "English As Second Languge" style translation. The Bog Standard Cliche, spelling, syntax and tautology errors are all intentional!

Finally i was done -and very pleased with the "off the shelf" look of the final project!

How to reward myself after all this Henshin centric research? Hmmm, how about a Vintage "fixer-upper" Cyborg Panther? Stay tuned for that restoration project, Moonbasers!

Cheers, Looey

OZ

MICRONAUGHTY

 I may have blogged these before but Lockdown has wiped my memory banks!

Micronauts-type knockoffs listed on old auction sites.

Have you got any?

Rubber guy and ship by Arco

Force Commander - it even says Micronauts in Italian!

Cassette 1 Helicopter - love it. 

C60 action!

Space Tank BT-1.  BT British Telecom never looked so good!

DO YOU KNOW GALACTIC STAR MITES BY EMPIRE OF CAROLINA?

These galactic Star Mites, of which these are just 3 examples, have caught my eye over the years. Firstly they were made by Empire of Carolina, which may well be the successor to Tarheel of Tarboro, who released American Project SWORD toys.

Secondly Star Mites are part of that die-cast anime and manga toy world that simply passed me by in the late 70's. I've since become aware of die-cast Popy, Grip, Edai and the Micronauts universe, largely through Wotan's posts on the subject.

There is a review of these Empire toys on the DX website. 

https://www.collectiondx.com/toy_line/star_mites

I can't really say whether these toys are cheap knockoffs or are in any way good. 

Can You?

MICRO FAKES AND KNOCKOFF NAUTS

Browsing Worthpoint's thousands of old auctions is always fun.

Here's a few more Micronauts knockoffs for those you who know about such things.

Micronauts simply passed me by as a teenager I'm afraid so I've no idea if these are knockoffs. I have to go on what Worthpoint tells me!

What do you think of these toys?

The Space Tank by CH toys.

This yellow jet complete with robot by Arco

A Cassette Helicopter CT-730

Micronauti Force Commander

HORNETROID SPOTTED IN NEW JERSEY

Heres a look at The Micronauts' Hornetroid that Bill mentioned earlier this summer.

I wouldn't want to feel it's sting!

Brian F NJ USA

SPACE TANK MICRONAUTS KNOCKOFF

Last year i blogged about the Space Pon Pon Car.

It was piloted by a Micronaut.

Here's another one that popped up on Ebay and Worthpoint last year, a Taiwanese battery-operated knockoff toy called Space Tank. 

Apparently, it's a knockoff of the Black Tiger Tank from Microman.

It seems to include the same elevating seat as the Space Pon Pon Car.

Anyone got one of these for better photo's?

ZELROBOT TOY

Saw these listed on the Bay.

Never seen them before so I kept the images.

ZELROBOT.

The description says its Japanese.

It reminds me of Micronauts toys.

I really like the rocket launcher on a pedestal. Is there any other toy like that?

What do you think of ZELROBOT?

WHAT IS ROBOTIX?

I saw this Mars Cruiser and thought ....hmmm, Micronauts.

But it isn't. Its Robotix.

What's that?

MICRONAUTS, METAL MAN AND MAZINGER USA

These are some toys that I always included in my Microverse.

Enjoy!

Brian, NJ.

(1) above, I know you are familiar with Zee toys Metal Man, so here's a group shot.

2) above, a pair of Henshin Cyborgs, I think they are 1990's remakes. All I know is they are translucent and look like foot tall Micronauts

(3) above, this yellow figure with his transforming 5 wheel vehicle is from a Japanese show that I forget the name of. It definitely looks good with Micronauts

(4) Mattel Shogun Warriors are based on Japanese manga characters. This 4 inch Mazinga and .... 

(5) this enormous Raideen,which has 2 right hands,are both welcome additions to my Micronaut Metropolis

What have you got?

A Mess of Micronauts

The shapes, the colors, what's not to love? 

My only regret is my photos are not nearly as nice as those in Bill's book.

Brian F

NJ

USA

More to follow

The Opaque World of Microman and Micronauts Knockoffs

Reader Koestenbraunstar commented this morning on his new Pon Pon Space Car toy.

It related to a question I once posed in a post: "Is Microman Driving the Pon Pon car?"

Now I'm in no way a Microman or Micronauts expert. I'm not even a fan really as the whole line passed me by.

However I do appreciate a good sci-fi toy range whatever it is and I'm always interested in knockoffs.

So it was gratifying to hear from a Mircroman fan that the Space Pon Pon Car fitted right into his collection.

This got me thinking. Are there more Microman-Micronauts knockoffs? To find any I thought I'd best bone up on the genuine stuff first so I read this excellent summary on That Figures.

Armed with basic info [always risky!] I set off to look for more Micro-knockoffs.

Browsing my old pal the Space Pon Pon car again I found what appears to be a colour variation of the pilot. Rather than lime green this fella's dark green. Is this darker green more Micromanish  - or less?

Can a genuine Micronauts figure fit in it cuckoo-like?

Oddly enough this search took me very close to home as there's a Space Pon Pon car available in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast [unless its gone that is. The Space Car, not Whitby!]

Next up on this voyage of piracy was an old friend too and something about which I once asked 'What the Hell is it?" in my Ugly Space Toys run of posts. 

Reader Lance knew and said at the time. Yep, its a Microman bootleg alright and here it is, the Climbleader Pioneer No.1 Car. Has anyone got one with a Microman or Micronauts figure sat in it?

The white trailer behind the Climbleader really calls to mind the yellow 02 trailer in the old Playmates Space Station line pictured below. Do you agree?

For some reason the name of the Climbleader Pioneer No.1 Car reminded me of this old Lucky toy, Lunar Probe No.1 I featured on MC 10 years ago! It's probably just the No.1! Doh!

OK, getting back to Micro matters proper, I dug a little deeper into the Micro-soil and found the Climbleader is in fact a knockoff an a genuine Microman vehicle by Takara, the Climbleader Police Keeper shown below. So there it is!

My foray into the microverse of false idols took me once again to a question I posed on MC 3 years ago. I'll re-phrase it for the thread of this post - can the Fisher Price X-Ray Man and Woman be classed as Microman relatives?

As a reminder here are the X-Ray couple

Further fishing in the Micro-sea inevitably brings you to Denys. That's Denys Fisher and his Strawberry Fayre line of Cyborgs and Mutons. These really do look Micronauty but I couldn't see them on That Figure's summary, so I ask you guys, are they related to Microman and Micronauts?

Here's a Muton with his rubber gloves on [he's about to do the Micro-dishes of course!]

And so, this particular voyage into Micro-mismanagement is over.

Have you ant Micro-knockoffs or bootlegs or indeed Micronauts themselves you would like to see pictured on MC? All welcome.

All that remains for me to do is introduce the original Microman in my opinion,

Robert the Robot from Fireball XL5!

[I wonder what colour the original translucent body was?]