Knights of the Round Table Playset

Our very good friend Erwin Sell has given us an article on a Hong Kong Playset called Knights of the Round Table Playset. It is not surprising that Hong Kong would use this title Knights of the Round Table as it was a British colony at the time  and a movie of the same name had been out in the 1950’s so they would have been aware of it.   Erwin has further insights on the Knights of the Round Table playset.

As reported before .The playset was called Knights of the Round Table from HK made in 1984. It comes with 6 different foot and 6 different mounted knights poses. Mounted were copies of Cherilea in the following configuration of 12 mounted knights. The foot knights were 24 foot figures base on Crescent-knights but with different helmets and armor variations split in two armies. The one army is green. The other army is red over silver painted on light pink plastic. Unfortunately I only have five mounted figures left after so many battles.  Two of mounted poses have a removable weapon or banner. They were made of very stiff hard plastic. The horses are of a softer plastic. 

The Castle

All above was already mention in previews post, now after finding the castle, tents ,one catapult and an odd chariot belong to the set. I decide share it with you as a sample of what happen when copying, mixing and cloning plus some original ideas make something interesting and nice.

The castle was based on an original Jean Hoefler castle downsized. But not a cloned in texture and windows/stone design. It come with all molded blow mold light plastic mountain that had a deep moat all around, not as original Jean Hoefler hard plastic stone base .(That part is gone for sure)

Tents and Catapult

 Two medieval tents were a copy of Timpo and the two unknown catapults were included also in the set. Now after finding more parts I realize as the tents the one catapult is copied from Timpo as well, but it has a variation in the fire (load) part as well size and minor detail.

The Chariot

The set has a rare odd chariot. The chariot was copied or almost cloned from Thomas Toy chariot but with a shield add on and is attached to chariot base. Horses are downsized Lido/Bergen copies .

The harness is the same used in many early Hong Kong toys that copied from herald western wagons. The fact they had a chariot always confuse me as it was a medieval playset; but because the playset was based on King Arthur’s legendary adventure and apparently Arthur was indeed from last roman period era or non-medieval in Britain may be someone decided to add it. So definitely chariot is interesting and curios detail of this playset after all!! 

I had not found the siege tower yet but now I believe the siege tower was a copy of either Jean Hoefler or Timpo siege tower opposite of what I had thought that it was Elastolin siege tower. I recall it was tall as it could lower the bridge to high top of castle tower having castle in it base.

I’m pretty sure I will get to it soon in my digging

 I have heard of different packaging of the above knights used in other countries, but I have not seen any examples to give you any more information on them.  This is the way I got them in my experience. I wish to find more soon.

Note-Please see difference of stone design-engraving more rustic in castle wall surface versus Jean HOEFLER.I think more realistic in the HK version.

The windows in the HK version were added with more Roman arch top frame design and painted around in same silver colors used on knights and others. Versus rectangular of German castle

The castle was done in exact same material as knights, very fragile and white parts had become brittle and yellow with time unfortunately. It did not have lower bridge, just simple door with key.

 The same castle with catapult and tent but without the base and no siege tower was used for a 1986 playset called King Arthur’s Castle Adventure with swoppet type knight figures.  This time, the knights were 56 mm scale figures and in similar Transogram (more multi parts) than Timpo swoppet figures style. The playset was made by an obscure company in Hong Kong called Star Toys.  This company should not to be confused with a similar name company from Europe-Germany. I will have these others knights pictures for you soon.