Hi Paul:
First flea market find of the new season. A counterpack of Imperial Toys, Cowboys and Indians, circa 1974.
The side of the carton says Imperial Toy Corporation, Los Angeles 1974.
The artwork reminds me of Atlantic Western stuff.
There are 6 pose of Cowboys and six of Indians. The figures are a full 54 mm.
and are full bodied. The side panel says 6 dozen included. I counted 64, so some are missing
The figures come in the following colors. The colors stay fast for both sides. For example there are no blue Indians. There are no tan or orange Cowboys.
COWBOYS: 6 colors
Cream a nice color. Very close to Marx
Light Blue
Dark Blue
Yellow
Pink (Hellooooo, Viet Nam)
Green
INDIANS: 5 COLORS
Red
Red Brown
Flesh
Orange
Tan
I have seen some of these poses before, in a very small scale sold in cheap HK bag sets. But these are very nicely sculpted and would fit right in most Western scenes.
This was a great find.
The last picture show a small bag set of Knights. Recognize the figures at all.
I don’t see these figures on Kent’s guide, so at some point I will forward them to him. I thought you would enjoy seeing these…..Bill
Editor Note
The Imperial western figures are copies of the western figures done by Jean of Germany. The knight are copies of the Britains swoppet knights done as solid figures.
The Cowboy and Indian poses are the Jean Hoeffler figures from Germany, and can be seen on Kent’s Toy Soldier HQ site.
I knew that they were Jean copies, but I have never seen such nicely cast copies of Jean figures before. Usually the are 40 mm or so and made from crap.
There are full body 54-56 mm figures in top quaility plastic.
The red/brown, cream and tan are really excellent colors. I’ll be adding some of these to my Western stuff.
And I didn’t know it was good old Bill Nevins who posted the photos. As to the figures, I just assumed they were actual Jean Hoeffler figures, found under the German figure section of Toy Soldier HQ. But upon closer inspection, some of the colors seem somewhat different than the original Hoefflers.
A set of those knights in silver plastic and painted came with a Styrofoam castle that I was given in the early-mid sixties. I have no idea who made them.
The knights are made in Hong Kong by ABC.
They copied a lot of the Herald and Britains ranges. They also did plastic versions of hollow cast lead figures. 1960s.