Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats, our friend  Andrey from Russia acquire these flats.  He is wondering who made them.  As you can see in the photos  the figures are done in a yellow plastic.

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats  Photos

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats

In this photo we see several band figures.  We have soldier with a base drum, soldier playing trombone, officer and soldier playing trumpet.

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats The second photo shows a soldier playing a flute, soldier playing snare drum and mounted lancer. The figures  have helmets. 

I checked with my very good friend Erwin and here is his thoughts on the figures.

The figures you have are extracted=base in PRUSSIAN MARCHING BAND MOLD from German brand lead figures of XIX century.
I will s you original figures mold picture later
I had seen then copied in plastic sold as publicities figures in the 50’s but as Prussian .now your had been varied by adapting a post WW2 era helmet that who knows what country did, it looks possible former East block done(Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania ) if not painted from late 70′ till early 90’s
Note the old button uniforms and boots else..
We do not know yet who made the figures. Andrey ask the party he purchased them, but did not get an answer.  Let us know your  thoughts on these figures.

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats Update

Our very good friend  Peter Evans sent the following photos in regards to these figures.

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats

Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats

Peter told me that they were sold as cake decorations in the 1970s. They were also came in ” Lucky Bags”.  Lucky bags were surprises like Cracker Jacks in the United States.
In the bag was candy, tattoos, crayons a small coloring book and toys.
Peter assume these figures were used as being semi flat they did not risk tearing the paper bag.
The mold may have been sold to Mexico later. Our very good friend Erwin Sell noted on examples coming out of Mexico.
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41 Responses to Do You Know Who Made These Figure Flats

  1. denitz says:

    I only twice saw such soldiers on eBay. Both times from US sellers. Here picture of set (probably full), which I missed two years ago.

    http://toysoldiers.spb.ru/refs/flatsmusicians.jpg

    So I think it’s american manufacturer. Anyway I will happy for any comments and answers. Also I still looking for buy such soldiers.

  2. Mark McNamara says:

    Reminds me of Home cast type of figures , could they be plastic versions ?

  3. peter evans says:

    Figures were made in hard plastic in Hong Kong in the 1970s – they were sold as cake decorations.
    I have a sent of painted versions
    I will send an image to Stad

    • Erwin says:

      Funny paint job covering the boots and painting odd english banner to made then x Britain market.
      Intersting verssion.

  4. George Albany says:

    Somewhere along the line, I picked up a boxed set of these figures. They intrigued me because of their similarity to the semi-flay home cast bandsmen that you see all over the place. As I recall, the box was not in very good shape and I do not remember any indication of the maker. Unfortunately, this set got “put away” when my lovely wife was cleaning and organizing and I’ve got no idea where it got to. If I stumble across it, I’ll pass on any additional info I can glean from the box.

    • Don Perkins says:

      Wife “put it away” while “cleaning and organizing”? Uh Oh.

      Years ago, I came back home from college for the Thanksgiving Holiday, to find that my mother had given away all my Airfix HO figures to a little neighborhood boy who had expressed an interest in them. “I thought he would enjoy them”, my mother explained at the time.

      The Marx, Timmee, Auburn, Ideal, and Lido figures, of course, had already long before been “cleaned and organized” out of existence, by the very same mother.

      • George Albamy says:

        Thankfully, my wife puts things away and not gives them away. Problem is that she does it without rhyme or reason and can’t remember just where they went. Happens w/firearms too. I’ll pull out a 20 ga shotgun and there is nothing by 12 ga shells with it. Had the same problem with my Mom that you did. Toys were given away to a variety of actors, no idea where or when.

  5. Brian Johnson says:

    Don’t get me started on what “Mom Did”!!

  6. Mark McNamara says:

    Never thought about it growing up but as an adult I look back and wonder what happened to this or that toy ( especially some of my favorite toys ) . My Mom used to have tag sales and she vistted the local Goodwill ,I wonder now if she sold some of my toys in tag sales or maybe gave some to Goodwill, they just seemed to vanish in thin air ?!

  7. mikey morey says:

    yep with me it is my sisters(two) who I live with,we put your plastic soliders away because they were cluttering up the place so we tidied them away.never to be seen again,
    I sometimes think the mystery of the bemuda triangle will be nothing more then my two sisters putting all the boats and areoplanes away so that they will not be cluttering up the place and making it look untidy.

  8. Andy says:

    My “best” Mom story, other than all my dozens of Marx complete-in-box with bags, instructions, etc. playsets that vanished is a COMPLETE 1961 SET OF TOPS BASEBALL CARDS!! From what I’ve heard, 1961 sets are one of the few years that have retained any value. Roger Maris was AL MVP in 1960 before hitting 61 home runs in 1961 and #2 in the ’61 set. 1960 NL MVP was Pirates’ SS Dick Groat and card #1. She had “no room for that junk.” She didn’t ask me because she “didn’t think I’d be interested.” ???????????????????????? NEVER fully get over this.

  9. Mark McNamara says:

    Taps for all the toys we lost !

  10. TDBarnecut says:

    Mom wrote a letter to MPC after I told her my civil war guys didn’t have enough hats and stuff. They sent a whole sprue of hats & weapons, etc. at no charge. Now that was about as cool as a mom could be.

    • Don Perkins says:

      It was, and it once again brings to mind the question as to what in the world MPC was thinking, when it consistently failed to include enough accessories in each bag to match the figures. This brings to mind what Rusty Kern said in his 2-volume “Marx Toy King” set: Louis Marx always tried to give “value” to the child, rather than to thoughtlessly shortchange him. This was why Rusty Kern says Louis Marx became the greatest toy maker ever, and MPC was never more than a distant runner-up, really quite second-rate.

      • Don Perkins says:

        And even today, there is hardly anything at a toy soldier show harder to sell or worth less than a bag of MPC ringhand figures that don’t have the accessories to go along with them.

        • TDBarnecut says:

          We had MPC, TimMee, Marx, etc. and it was all good. Even today I would rather have American made ‘runner-up’ than anything from the People’s Republic. Please send me all your ‘worthless’ ring hand figures!

          • Don Perkins says:

            TD, please re-read my post. I was referring to the low value of MPC ring-hands “that don’t have the accessories to go along with them.”

            But to your secondary point: Are you aware that the injection molded plastic from CTS, Paragon, TSSD, Barzso, LOD, and Expeditionary Force are all made in the “People’s Republic”, as was AIP? Same story with BMC. Even Conte, who started his early sets in Canada, ended up being produced over there. And much of the last years of Marx came from old Hong Kong.

            But if that’s how you decide which toy soldiers you like, you should go to a few shows. If you’re looking for MPC ringhands which are missing the accessories, you’ll find you’ve got pretty much a clear buying field, because, without the accessories, hardly anybody (with you yourself apparently being the exception) really wants them these days.

            Paul Stadinger has made this point before: Show dealers can have them on their tables at near giveaway prices, but MPC ringhands without accessories just don’t sell.

          • erwin says:

            With all respect and expressing my views.
            Well that let short a lot of Marx being produced in HK -made by Chinese, also UK many brands produced there too…
            Today is hard to get anything(included many US weapon arsenal not produced in China ).
            I had notice it as (all bad done is because Chinese made!!!).
            Well guess what!!?
            Who are the control manager product line?(US AND Others are) they are the one that give the OK to products to be mass produced with or with out quality.
            I been there many times and see how -heard and even argue with them how US/Europeans/japanese born manager said(yes go and do as that any ways the got money and they will buy again)=THEY -is us-the Consumers in developed countries.
            Same goes for others producing there.
            If Chinese want to do something good they do it very well .
            OWN brand figures are super in detail, quality and design plus plastic, nothing to envy at all ,they were art crafted and designer by Chinese for Chinese and to sold out in China only.
            EXF brand artist are CHINESE, not even Chinese or Singaporean from Singapore.
            I personally know/met one.
            Their figures range among best in design, not perfect but far superior to many vintage and some of today done.
            Most products sold in this hobby are made in China and many designed there wile others here by few great US else artist, still mass produced here.
            Even Barzso nice made in US resin figures went china too x plastic. Yes different designed but not a horrible change at all.
            IT has to be with how bad is the control quality manager and demanding of quality is.
            MPC ,LIDO did have few nice, most were cheap second of third hand compered to MARX,IDEAL,AURBUR in quality of scuplture,plastic ,idea and durability.
            Do not get me wrong I do have few but x collectible purpose more than quality or realism.
            That many could have a nostalgic love x it I do not blame and understand, I got some nostalgic x old HK copies too cheap figures.

            Last I been China tons of time ,and trust me they are not the slave idiot as were before 90′,they had developed a lot they can travel outside free with out restriction like NKOREAN can not do at all and cars have overpopulated to nation, still far from many us as they carry the quarter of world population in people. A huge challenge that not country had ever have to deal plus pass many wars and revolution in less 100 years with stop plus a fanatic Mao communism that made then suffer more than any nation.
            Yet I admire the desire and effort of made in US and wish could may come back, x now is far ,but as Chinese become more expensive producing and already smarter in demanding,the table will have to be turn around or look else …
            Their price increase ,the less demand and less buy in collectors/gamers will eventually kill the long run production and force short run production with 3D or else ,that will be back here in many cases.
            If want only US ,then you may have to stick w vintage most part x long and already so…
            my thoughts.
            best regards.

  11. ed borris says:

    I think the cruelest cut I ever suffered was the Xmas I got my Rin Tin Tin Fort Apache, my mother made me give away half the figures to my cousin. That truly hurt. The second cruelest cut was the time she made me give all my Giant Romans, Vikings and Knights plus the Viking Ship to another cousin. Third on the hurt parade was the time she gave away all my cowboys, Indians, pioneers and pirates to a total stranger. Ouch, the memories of those events still sting. I won’t even go into how I found out she threw away all my baseball cards, football cards and Civil War cards, too much trauma.

  12. erwin says:

    I guess I was lucky, sorry hears all that from you guys..my childhood was very happy in the toy side and collection. Never lost any other than few left back, or give away by my self.
    I bet those old bad moment you guys had were recover later wile collecting in most cases…hope so..

  13. ed borris says:

    Well, I guess if your dad is a collector, things are different. My parents felt I outgrew playing with soldiers so there was no need to keep them and they were passed on to others to enjoy. I don’t think they ever understood how someone could get attached to them. To me it was like giving away my little friends of course they couldn’t undertsand that.

  14. bill nevins says:

    All of my stuff including my Giant Blue and Gray went to a younger cousin.
    Years later, I called my Aunt who told me all of that stuff was in her basement.

    I jetted right over there and recovered all of my original stuff plus all of my cousins playsets.

    Still have ’em.

  15. Wayne W says:

    My mom was pretty good with my stuff. There was a family of kids whose mom died in a fire trying to save a baby brother we used to give our toys to at Christmas. I never really minded that – Mom always let me choose what I wanted to give away. I knew better than to give junk so some of my guys went there. Really never missed them.

    It was my dad who got rid of my stuff when I went off to the Army. He came home on leave the summer after I enlisted (he was a career soldier, too). We had a house in Illinois where my folks hoped to retire. I had stored my comic and baseball card collection in the closet. He got a wild hair to clean out the “junk” and burned them all in the trash before Mom found out. She had a fit but it was too late.

    The only thing that saved my toy soldier collection was I had given them over to my younger brothers to take care of – I got them back years later. Mom never did let Dad live that down. Every so often you’d see a thing on TV where a comic or a baseball card sold for a chunk of change and more than once it would be something I’d had in my collection. All I had to do was say “I had that one…” and it was like punching the buttons on a juke box. I took good care of my stuff, too so I don’t know if I’d get the price some of those cryogenically sealed comics got but I would imagine they were still worth something. I liked Marvels so think Fantastic Four #1 & 2 among others…

    • Wayne W says:

      As to MPC, I think I’ve said it before here but I like what the guy said who called the MPC guys Marx’s “poorer cousins.” But I still have fond memories of them – I got a whole bunch of them over the years in playsets for my birthdays; I never figured out why they’d have 45mm (didn’t know the scale then, just knew they were small) “GIs” fighting against 60mm Germans or Ringhand GIs against Germans, etc, but what the heck?

      I wish I’d thought to write about extra sprues – always felt ripped off – but they did man the cannons.

    • George Albany says:

      Here’s a good Dad and toy story. One day, I was playing with some of my Marx Civil War guys and out of the clear blue, threw up all over ’em. Just one of those little kid moments, was not sick, had not eaten anything that I shouldn’t have, just tossed my cookies, all over the soldiers and the living room carpet. My Mom was livid. As only mom’s can behave in a crisis, she immediate started scrubbing the carpet and getting ready to bag the soldiers up for the trash. I was crushed, tears in my eyes, pleading with her not to throw them out. Dad showed up and without a word, took the soldiers downstairs to the concrete set tub and scrubbed them all clean. My old man had the occasional bad moment, but he also had great moments like that. As he got older and the dementia took possession of him, I coped in part by reminding myself, this was the guy who scrubbed the barf off of some of my favorite soldiers. RIP Dad.

  16. Erwin says:

    The position of arms in MPC ring hand remains me of silly position Timpo swooped have the arms x action poses,like robots w elbow problems.I have few MPC as child,I add more later,specially civilians.They still serve a purpose.
    I can use some….

  17. ed borris says:

    I think we have to give MPC some credit while their early figures of ringhands left a lot to be desired, they actually in some cases had slot hands not ring hands, but were combined with other figure that did have the ring hands. As time went by the position of the arms changed and some of figures particularly the western figures and later GI’s could actually hold the rifles and handguns correctly and one guy actually had his hand positioned as if he was firing a hand gun. Overall they seemed to lacking any strategy in the making of figures other than mass producing everything and getting them in any store they could for sale. I would venture a guess that not many kids lined up their ringhands next to their Marx Civil War or western figures. I know I didn’t, ringhands went with ringhands and generally speaking they were much to aggravating to actually drag out and have battles with. Your normal guys you could have a huge battle in the space on a hour with ringhands you need a considerable amount of time just to put all the accessories on them and heaven help you if you actually moved them during the course of a battle. The only cool thing about them is when they got killed and you knocked them over they would actually drop their weapons, of course they would pretty much drop their weapons if you had a fan going in your house.

  18. Larry T says:

    As far as MPC goes, their ring hand Jungle figures and animals, their Pirates and accessories were actually pretty good. Their Dinosaurs were OK, but were mostly copies of Marx figures.
    I was lucky with my old figures. I have a younger brother and all of guys were passed on to him. Years later when my Mother moved to a new house she said, “Here these are yours, please take them.” They were most of the guys from my “Famous Americans” Fort Apache, WOW Romans and Vikings, Lido Knights and GI’s, Auburn Western, Ideal Knights, MPC Pirates and Jungle. All were incomplete and extremely well played with!

  19. Erwin says:

    I personally have all few MPC ring hand in the bottom deep of my like…
    Do not know why they jump from 45mm to taller either in too big difference.
    I rather have their smaller line.They even copied too many marx indians and some of Gis,germans and japanese poses were directed extracted from Marx.No much imagination I guess.
    The ring hand idea that suppose to work actually was not good,neither practicall as weapons fall off easy.
    They look more like delicate barby doll not x child war play.
    Again my personal like,thoughts

  20. Brian Johnson says:

    My MPC Ringhands usually ended up on Gun Crews or as Enemy POW’s especially the “Foreigner” looking ones with the trenchcoats or high stiff collars.

  21. bill nevins says:

    Never cared for MPC or Lido. To me they were junk. Lido would have been OK if the were fully rounded with bases. I did love their Rev War figures, but they kept falling over. Too annoying to deal with.
    Marx figures got saved.
    MPC got blown up with fireworks of shot with BB guns.
    I still remember attaching an MPC soldier to a bottle rocket expecting him to fly into space!!
    He was too heavy and the rocket couldn’t lift off. Flamed out and melted Mr MPC.

    • erwin says:

      I once got a huge bunch of MPC ARW 45 mm to make battle formation , once put all standing fire in line and kneeling with out base plus the (no proper kneeling loading poses) ,they look nice as far you do not breath as if do, they all file like cards in a row.
      Once ACCURATE show up, I sold out most of then. I can not understand the idea of make figures skinny small and not good base for play in case of toy soldiers specially!!?
      Who had the silly idea designing it
      now I only have one each pose as collection sample.
      I know I could had add bases but why waste time ,beside as children would be a nightmare..
      LIDO semiflat figures have the same issues, all of them, even the darm semiflat horse.
      Sorry took on LIDO this time..LOL!!!

  22. bill nevins says:

    Erwin Absolutely!!

  23. Jack Gibbons says:

    I was told by an older and much “wiser” 7th grader that the 45mm MPC green infantry were Japanese soldiers (we didn’t have any actual Japanese figures). I guess he didn’t understand the scale of figures at that time. So, from then on they became the Japanese who terrorized my Marx marines and GIs. They also became VC and NVA troops when fighting the M16 Timmee Infantry figures.

  24. I was always disappointed with the lack of artillery crews made by Marx. So I used the MPC ACW blue Union, gray Confederates, metallic blue Colonials & brown Pioneers as my cannon servers. The couching guy looks great with a ramrod, walking guy holds a bucket and man with arm out was firing the cannon. Kneeling guy got a home made telescope . The pirates and jungle figures work great. Its only the four shirt & pants guys (farmers) and the six “zombie” military/firemen/police that were not wanted in my Armies. The better armymen also served in the artillery. MPC consistently put in too few sprues of accessories as no one evidently was paying attention. The mail away space set got weapons for only 1/2 the figures.

  25. erwin says:

    In my case…
    I cut bases most my MPC ring hand and used as death, they look very still/rigid too .I remember using one as Frankenstein too and Zombies x my fantasy/SF plays..
    Some were good to carry wounded with stretchers as the civil war poses.
    The poses of MPC look always to flat and rigid in odd poses arms ,even the firing.
    Their weapons were too big even for them…
    Marx did way too many poses but few actually in firing action poses in most sets.
    Artillery men they did two in union and the 60 mm confederated.
    Plus bucket carrier else from other set. Least 4. The problem with MARX action poses was always distribution of poses too I guess. So innovation was required improvising… I used extra marching next to cannons x crews
    Least they cover the poses wile Ideal, Tim mee,LIDO did not
    LIDO have nice action smaller set poses but the figures with out base were annoying me .I never get it why they did semi flat figures with out bases x kids to play.
    MPC did have a good selection of action poses and better distribution ,least in bags in many sets ,but the figures have the silly bases than can not hold figure well.
    The MPC carriage and wagon were the more clumsy and or /loose wheels ever.
    In general MPC producer neither have idea of quality, not care x it and did not know how kids play. Still they feel the ranks back then as today we use the ugly too from copies else to do their duty in some cases…
    I also used the skin Indian wrap some cotton fabric x tartars, Saracen and others x lack of then against my medieval…I guess out of necessity we can use even small horses x wolf too.
    Now they(MPC ring hand) are relayed to back cleaning duties unfortunately…
    Poor guys, no wonder you find then at every garage dump site sale,I see then more than many HK cheap copies and LIDO .
    My thoughts..
    best…

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