Our very good friend Mathias found these mysterious Russian figures on a Russian Figure forum. The photo shows five figures three men and two women poses. The male poses are man kneeling firing a rifle, a man with a flag and man with a bomb. The female poses are woman with pistol and woman walking with a rifle. No company was given and the hunt was on to find out who made these figures.
We checked with sources to see if they had any information of these mysterious Russian figures. None of the sources had a clue of the company, one source made some observations. First the card behind the figures shows the skull and crossed bones. The source noted that the skull and crossed bones was used by the communists to signify anti communist or bandit groups. The second observation was that female figure with a pistol is using a Mauser pistol. Finally the figures with bases are plug in figures to the bases not plug in.
Still we did not have any idea who made these mysterious Russian figures. Mathias contacted Denitz a noted Russian collector and dealer. Denitz knew the name of the company it was a new company called Nagant. The name Nagant is interesting as it is the name is of a pistol that was used by both Tsarist and Communist troops. Denitz feels the figures representing the forces of Nestor Makhno. Nestor Makhno was an Ukrainian anarchist who tried to create a anarchist nation in southern Ukraine. Over the years Nestor and his forces found various forces including German, Tsarists, White Russians and Communists. Nestor was eventually forced to escape Russia and died in exile in Paris.
Denitz told Mathias that the figures are a limited production. Denitz also noted that the figures are resin. With the addition of Nagant we now have three companies from Russia. The companies Engineer Bassevitch and Pvblivs along with Nagant are doing periods of Russian history that are of interest for both local and foreign figures.
Cool ! I love seeing new poses !
Interesting and funny looking, still will be a nice add on to the only Russian/soviet revolution sets done by EB and Atlantic. A forgotten very bloody time in history that change the curse of history forever and barely touched by toy soldiers companies ,even in metal few are done and most Russian.
They definitely look very carton character type.
After close observation and looking at history of the anarchist band and leader, by the clotting -coat, bottle and weapon ,the one pose could possible be actually Makhno ;still he should had been represented more short in stature as he was very small man.
Nicely sculpted except that rifle the kneeling guy is firing. They look like character figures similar to what EB and PVBLIVS does with Russian literature/Movie character figures. Too bad other makers would do nice character figures either historical, fictional lit or the cinema. I’ m still waiting for in plastic 1/32 Character figures from such classic movies as Gunga Din, The Vikings, Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heros, James Bond movies, Cross of Iron, Braveheart…. From Fiction, the Classic adventure novels, Bernard Cornwall books, Prince Valient, …Historical like more versions of Custer, William the Conqueror and so on but in action poses. T.V. Series like Rat Patrol and Combat…
Tom
To back up the comment of Erwin, the biggest problem on doing Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heroes etc. is licensing rights. Not only do you have to pay a licensing for the property, you also have to pay a licensing fee to the actor’s likeliness. Conte ran into this problem when he tried to do Charlton Hesston’s likeliness for his Warlord Playset. He was told that he could if he paid $100,000.00!. Conte refused and did a generic face. Some actors do not want their likeliness use at all. Case when they did the figures for the movie Hook Robin Williams who played Peter Pan in the movie said no.
The way around this is to do generic poses to simulate the character and not call the set by its movie title. Still you have the demand and the cost.
I think and big problem doing film or book base character is the licenses and copyrights fees/cost that will have to be paid in advance and it is a stop to any designer and producers as some times could take years for just one character.That is why most do a generic figure instead.Conte run in to that and was very problematic.
In the other hand historical figures such as Custer had been cover by various companies in action poses. William of Normandy was done by Elastolin mounted and on horse in action poses. Marx covered some TV series as well with charaters.
I also notice Russian metal-54mm production doing some historical figures that could be produced in plastic but I will said may be in the short run production as collectors will buy only one and no all collectors will go for the specific figure. Definitely a nice idea but hard to get least from the point of view of makers and profit they could take off.
In metal film character and historical are more easy to do as most metal producer are short run and price are very high, so out one character they can do a profit easy.Wile in plastic only few will paid more than $5.00 to 9.00 per a historical figure.
Sample the few Barzso only included in playset main character figures once sold at show or eBay loose go x high price ,still not that high and few buy them as prefer use generic pose that could substitute them.
It is what it is regarding licensing but for the property rights it doesn’t make sense sometimes. The majority of the movie themes desired by Toy Soldier Firms are films made pre roughly 1975. What Toy companies are looking for these licenses? Not many the least of all War movies. Why? Because they do not appeal to age 5 to 35. Wouldn’t it make sense to give away rights to say Conte for an obscure film like the “Warlord”? Conte is putting up his own money to produce this set and in effect giving free advertising to the film therefore creating a spike in DVD sales when otherwise the Studio would never get a request for the Warlord as a toy license and as a result not getting increased sales in DVD’s.
If it makes sense don’t do it!!
Tom
You would think it would be easy to get the rights of war films. It is not companies are more interested in promoting their hot properties. The people who are in charge have no clue and can make unreasonable or stupid demands. Richard Conte had some real hassles with the person in charge of the license for the “The Vikings”. Conte realized that it was easier to do figures without the movie tie in.
Or to make my point clearer, if I owned the rights to the “Rat Patrol”, “Combat”, “longest Day”, ect… And a firm wanted to put up their own money for a playset I would give them the rights free. Why? Free advertising for something that I own rights to.
Also the old classic’s are in the “Public Domain” so why not a “Rob Roy”, “Three Musketeers”, 20,000 leagues under the Sea” playsets?
The way I see it you are mixing up two very different things; There are actual historical characters and the events they were involved in, and then there is the fictional ‘Hollywood’ version created by authors and actors for books and films. If you create a fictional character you own the rights to that character. Many of Louis Marx’s play sets were created to cash in on the hoopla surrounding the latest Movie or TV show – just like they currently create toys and other tie-ins to the latest Star Wars film. So Marx paid the license fee but made it back easily by selling millions of play sets.
Of course you can create a 20,000 leagues play set if the original Jules Verne story is now public domain, but if any of your character figures resemble the actors in the Disney film then you might hear from ‘happiest place on earth’ lawyers.
TD you are correct.
In War Lord case it was the issue with actor Heston and his lawyers that got in the way from start. The moment you try make something, there always looking to get pennies out of you. Lawyers know exact how to get this. In case of old movies because remake had been done after and right bough by those later; the title and rights in position of those that got them now. Unfortunately it is very sad and ridiculous but it reality and happen all time.
Sample is Tarzan playset ,even those base in non actual movies with actor just the name (Tarzan ) require license and author rights. Many toy maker had gone along by creating set with Tarzan by just name then else such (jungle adventure) playset and so on.By the way three musketeers had been done by various European toy soldiers firms-the generic not film actor base. Starlux,reamsa,jecsan,rojas ,Cromoplasto,Nardi and others.
Rob Roy I think Replicant try use a generic bandit set to be use such or else…
20 000 … requires a submarine (ambitious project);still very interesting playset would be if done
The Russian lettering in the back says
Anarchia
Looks like EBs sculptor
Check out this link: the Nagant Anarchists could very well be characters from a movie!
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Parkhomenko