Our very good friend Erwin Sell is helping on an article for Plastic Warrior on the Hong Kong Romans and the Crescent knights which they were copied from. Erwin sent us a photo showing the different poses of both types side by side so you can see how the Crescent poses were converted into Romans. As you can see the poses were kept the same.
The three poses in the photos above show the way the Hong Kong changed the armor and headdress. It always interesting how thing are changed to sell an item.
Also to avoid license rights too; still in my opinion in the development they create new poses/figures else and if not bad done is a plus in the hobby. Like recently DGN WW2 sets made out of a mix of original poses from Airfix/ESCI , Matchbox ,Italeri/others made some nice new armies sets.
The knights were given away as prizes in Kellogg’s cereal boxes back in the day as well. They are about 60 mm and came in blue and white plastic, at least those are the only two colors I have.
Tnes
What Tnes is talking about is Kellogg’s UK had Crescent do premiums for them. Some of the figures were already existing such as the knights and Grenadiers. The Crescent 54mm robin Hood I believe were done first for the cereal and reused by Crescent after the promotion.
Interesting; Are you referring to The HK copies version above!?.
Because the kellogs/cereal premiums are the one in light blue and white/cream ,cloned from original Crescent poses( in row bellow). Two different series of same figures done by company .I have the 6 Kellogs poses too in both color.Hong Kong also produce the crescent romans but in almost identical copies .
The Hong Kong (above line-row) similar/not same figures with different helmet and some different top part armor were part as state in previews posting with other pictures of a large castle playset with mounted knights and else!!
Does anyone remember the macaroni product called Wagon Wheels? When they first came out they included an Ideal Cowboy or Indian in each box. I convinced my mom to buy a box once and I got a cowboy, the one where he’s holding the gun in a bizarre fashion and it looks like he stepped in a pile of horse manure or he’s trying to avoid one.
It seems that anything Ideal did in odd sizes were always good and the things they did in standard sizes were bad.
Do any of you know if the Crescent Knights were recast? The Archer looks nice and I’d like to get one,
Years ago, when I was active on eBay, there was a lady in Britain who had acquired a series of old molds, Crescent, Herald, and others. She had her father convert them so that they could use them to cast plastic. I was able to convince her to reconvert the Robin Hood mold and cast me a Robin Hood in pot metal (and maybe a couple other Robin hood figures too, I forget), also some Crescent musicians. Anyway, do not remember her name or eBay handle, but perhaps she is still selling recasts that you might be interested in.
As far I know I never heard of any crescent reissued; but the kelloggs premium vintage same poses from crescent knights are not hard to get for a low price in auction, eBay or shows .Most time together with other brands mix lot. I got most of my several archer poses in that way to add in my armies, on rest poses I just kept two of each for my collection and rest sold off.
I think the Lady you are refereeing to is Divina Hill.
She has the tooling for Charbens, Cherilea and some Johilco.
The only Crescent mould she had was for a couple of the circus animals.
The Robin Hood was a Charbens figure, never produce in plastic.
She sells on Ebay as ‘Plastics from the Past’
Bingo! That’s her. Hope she is still doing well selling soldiers.
George
She has been selling since the 90’s. Her father got the molds. The best of the Charbens figures are the pirates. I got my first Charbens figures as a child in Gimbels Department Store in the Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill NJ along with British 8th Army figures.
Hi Peter
Thanks for the information, I remembered talking to her years ago.
Peter
I checked EBay UK and it looks like she is using divinajean as her EBay user id.
Thank you Peter for letting know about her;interesting a woman in the hobby business of old vintage toy soldiers/figures mold being recast. I will like to know more about her enrolment and interested on it if possible.
Was she the person responsible for reissuing the charbens and cherilea sets in late 90’s?
As a newcomer to this forum, I may be contributing information which is already known, as the site’s archives are extensive and will take me a long time to work through. Variations and derivatives are fascinating aspects of figure collecting, so I would like to offer examples of both.
The Kellogg’s versions of the Crescent Knights reveal a small change on the halberdier. In the photo at the top of this page, the helmet plume folds over on itself, forming an inverted letter J. However, there is also a version with the plume flared in a symmetrical shape. A quick search of eBay listings will show this. I have yet to see this variation on Crescent’s own issues, so if it only appeared on the Kellogg’s figures, would this mean that the flared plume was the original form, and the demand for Kellogg’s figures required additional production runs, during which the change was introduced, and if so, why?
Next, the Hong Kong Romans are not the only set to draw heavily on the Crescent Knights. I frequently see eBay listings of knights by the German manufacturer Jean Hoefler. In the set of eight figures on foot, the similarities to Crescent’s issues are numerous. The most striking is the Hoefler figure with a horizontal spear, whose lower body is that of the M5 swordsman with hardly any changes. There is also a kneeling figure which is almost identical to Crescent’s RG1 Roman.
Stewart
Welcome, we appreciate any information from our readers. Your information is interesting and welcome.