Erwin Sell Wonders About 54mm Knights Made in Italy. Recently Erwin and I had a conversation on the 54mm knights made from Italy. These knights showed up here in 1980’s at Woolworth’s. Also from Italy were cowboys and Indians. They were also offered by Rubenstein. The question is who made them?
Erwin Sell Wonders About 54mm Knights Made in Italy Question
The figures are copies of the Marx six inch but have changes. Cane did 70m copies of Marx six figures. Here is there copies of the Marx six inch World Two Japanese and U.S. Army.
I had thought that Cane did the 54mm version, but Erwin disagrees. He says there armor differs a bit from the Cane. I know that the knight were used in a castle set, I got from Italy. Woolworth and Rubenstein are repackaged so no clue there.
Erwin says from sources this mold in Mexico but not the cowboys and Indians. You can see an example of these knight figures at this Ebay posting.
Ok let me add something to avoid confusing .
The CANE are 70/75 mm and copies of 6″ scale knights MARX direct .
While these 54 mm sold under and not made by Rubenstein were apparently sold in ITALY under Bararbeli and with TIBIDABO castle (I got full Tibidabo castle playset with then), and the knights come exact as these in ebay link only with minor parts painted in exact 54 mm .Yet after comparing then with CANE the armour detail differ in some areas ,meaning they did not clone then in 54 mm from MARX but copied the exact poses with minor variation.I had seen several TIBIDABO original packing with then as well .The same happen with cowboys and indians often too credited as to be Rubenstein.
After deep research Rubenstein was more a repacker of many other toy premium than manufacture and same knights appear to be sold in US under other packing as well.
Unfortunately and after plenty communication with several great italian collectors and actually italian toy soldier books writers they can not find information about real Barabeli and Tibidabo sets or mold made ,but only their catalog list with photos .Yet while Barabeli did sold under license Cherilea toy sets ,Tibidabo did have a manufacture located in Italy .Yet nothing about then come to light .
The knights mold is in Mexico after being direct informed by A collector and photos provided.Nothing about cowboys indians.
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