Reader’s Contributions Axel, Erwin Question Rick Fisher Possible Surprises as we get to the end of the year. First Axel Sohinus share photo of two Engineer Bassevitch figures. Erwin shares Hasbro soldiers Hong Kong. Rich has another question on figure. As always if room we will show other figures.
Reader’s Contributions Axel, Erwin Question Rich Fisher Possible Surprises Axel
Axel Sohinus found the last two loose Engineer Basevitch figures a dealer at the Herne show. He then painted them using the reference book you see in the background. He hopes to get more of these figures as they work well with the Marx and Timpo figures. The figures can be used to fight Arabs, Vikings and Romans. We will keep you posted.
Reader’s Contributions Axel, Erwin Question Rick Fisher Possible Surprises Erwin
Erwin looks at Hasbro Hong Kong rare soldiers.They are a mix hybrid poses of Lido,Marx, Auburn, MPC and others with variation. Scale is about 52/54 mm. I have poses yet appear to be more done as far I had seen on internet photos.
Reader’s Contributions Axel, Erwin Question Rich Fisher Possible Surprises Rich’s New Question
Rich Fisher sent the following pictures. Attached is photos of some figures I bought in an ebay auction. The figures came from England. I know the YELLOW Cavalryman is a Tim-Mee copy.
The RED figure is a copy of the Ideal Roy Rogers and the 2 white harness horses are Thomas Toy copies but I don’t know what foreign company produced them or the rest of the figures pictured. Any help is appreciated.
I mention to Rich that Timmee had an agreement with a party in Germany. Tudor Rose is one of several companies that agreement to use mold from United States.
To me the yellow cavalry guy looks like a copy of Airfix 7th cav, and maybe the blue Indian with a lance is too? The green wagon driver looks like the one that came with REL wagons…
The blue indian is by Tudor or alike brand in UK and copy of Elastolin.
Yes, The blue Indian & the blue cavalryman are Elastolin copies.
The 2 figures at the beginning of the article are from the Engineer Bassevich Ancient Assyrian set.
The other day I lucked out at the local Savers and got a bag of mostly Andy Gard ring hand us army soldiers. On the base they were marked Hong Kong. They still had that hole through the base which I see online. They came with belts, grease guns, Carbines, Ray guns and Brit style helmets. Any info on these? I thought Andy Gard was manufactured in the USA? They have very good facial detail and overall sculpting.
i have a number of the hasbro 54mm figures, they make nice additions to the marx marines; the color is similar to the glencoe recasts. years ago i was told by GI Joe collectors that the figures were produced for a GI Joe board game, but i have never found them in any of the games i’ve seen, so that info may be inaccurate.
I had seen then in a playset and in a bag on eBay but not much photos indicating inside.
Lots I have are always mix.
Best
I have all of the Hasbro poses, except the guy with the walkie-talkie. They come in three colors- darker green, lighter green, and a lighter tan. I remember a friend who had these because they reminded me of my Marx 6″ US marines. I remember he had opponents that may have been Lido Germans or Hong Kong knock-offs.
These figures must have literally been in the shadow of GI Joe in 1966.
Thank u Jack.Never see the other colors.I have Lido HK knock off germans but in mint packs and come along. However u theory or idea as being used may be well done.Why not.
What looks intersting also to me is how early Hasbro was literally coping marx and aurburn poses .
My thoughts.
Best
please tell me more about tim mee nobody ever talks about that company specifically the yellow,pink , and teal vietnam army men i have a few in my collection but i have no clue how they were sold did they come in the same bag together i can never seem to find anything particularity useful to suggest if they were sold in a tricolor bag or each color sold separate also if anyone has any for sale i would be very interested in buying them i collect them heavily
The neon-colored Timmee/Processed Plastic were sold in bags that mixed all the colors together. They came out in the early 70s – a sort of reaction to the counterculture and anti-war feeling of the time.
DO you know where i can find a copy of the header card? was it unique? i wish i would of been alive back then to pick up a bag or 2 i know that about a guy on the internet who has a tim mee blog but he rarely talks about them so it gives me the conclusion anything about them has been lost to obscurity of the decades since their release
No dump site has been mention as I suspect they regrind their plastic as most companies started to do in 60’s on.
that’s really unfortunate but makes me feel better knowing that their is no point in worrying about it at least i can cross it off my list and not worry i have religiously and fanatically searched the internet and came across a Facebook page talking about the old plant in Montgomery and they said you can find them down in a creek by the plant that’s what started my interest and ever since then I’ve been scurrying old data all over the web to find some scrap of existence of the ultimate find
also one more thing where is everyone hearing this info everyone keeps telling me it was to help sell army men but i do not know of a source?i understand you can tell just by the colors what the agenda was but is someone from the company actually quoted in saying that? does anybody know what happened to the people in charge of tim mee or where a dump site would be where i could possibly dig them up? because i really want to be able to have a good chance of having a bigger collection of them i rarely see them on ebay and when i do people mark them up because they think their unique but i never hear anyone trying to buy them all the rage seems to be with marx its a good thing ig im the only person who collects them
I’m afraid that I can’t answer your questions about the neon GIs. I doubt that they were in production for very long. Good luck collecting! Jeff Imel at VictoryBuy has been reissuing the Timmee/PP soldiers in interesting colors that might make good complements to your neon figures.
I’ve seen them thank you though i understand lol if anything i’m pointing out how sad it is to see such interesting things decay i bet thousands of the neon colored tim mees are sitting in old sand boxes all over america decaying as we speak what a unfortunate circumstance collect em while you can ig
You are absolutely correct! We are fascinated by and collect plastic soldiers that were seen as disposable toys for kids and treated accordingly. It is always a wonderful feeling to come across a long-lost soldier in the dirt of a yard or the sand of a beach – a forgotten veteran of somebody’s play battle. I’m glad that you are having fun preserving an interesting bit of toy soldier history.
Im still fairly young being only 19 and somewhat of a newcomer to the community whenever i go outside sometimes i just go dig in my own yard without any direction and sometimes i get lucky to find some of my old figures this last summer i found a 70mm tim mee indian i had no recollection of owning its odd being a millennial in this hobby because everyone played with marx as a kid while i played with the good ol’ bucket of tim mees as a kid i have quite fond memories before they went out of business in 2005 of playing with them i remember going to Walmart and buying the boxes for under a dollar what a golden age it was in the early 2000’s i remember getting a big helicopter with the obscure and hardly remembered shiny green tim mees once and going to beach and playing with it i recall it was fairly cheap too being in the price range of 10-25 dollars maybe at meijers i drool thinking of the pricing too i think that’s what the appeal always was how cheap fun and imagination was as a kid
Here is a site you should go to http://timmee-army.blogspot.com/ You will find a lot of information. They have a timeline and show many items from the Timmee/ Processed Plastic line. The modern army are not in demand due to so many being produced. Not to mention the copies. That said I sold last month a large lot of them on Ebay for a nice cheap price.
i probably bought them off you lol ebay has slowly become my go too i got a whole lot of 275 blue translucent tim mee vietnam army men(yes i counted) and then for another 20 bucks i got the rare tan and green marbled figures those have my best finds so far
also just to add I’ve seen his black tim mee tanks and im really jealous he has allot of stuff i cannot find hopefully one day if he ever decides to part with his stuff he will sell them to me cause i store my figures quite well i plan to keep them for a long time and hopefully get them put in a museum or something where they can be respected if my kids don’t want them
You can still buy Timmee’s, they is a compnay I believe called Victory they have an on line site.
I think this is the link:
https://victorybuy.com/
thank you but i already know i probs helped spark that with my google searches and constant badgering i feel like i suggested he make them in grey and red but its been so long i do not remember i do know i wanted them in red for some reason at one point or another i just hope he doesn’t decide to recast them in the old colors like yellow pink or teal simply cause it would confuse people when i told them i had the originals i read once that they tried recasting marx figures in original colors and it pissed a lot of people off cause it was confusing and you could barely tell them apart i understand this though cause i don’t want to have to explain to people i have the original and have them call me a liar or see me as trying to scam them in the future if i ever choose to sell them(which i wouldn’t)
Henry, Tim Mee made a wide range of figures and toys over many years. You ought to start your own Tim Mee website / blog and post all your research there. It would be helpful to other Tim Mee collectors as well.
i have plans to start a blog this next semester i’m sighed up for a class to help me with my grammar that’s all i’ve been wating for honestly there already is a tim mee blog and i was worried i would take all his thunder away plus i worry sometimes because i don’t think allot of people collect tim mee lucky for everyone i do collect a shit ton of tssd and those new lod trojans and greeks are a new favorite of mine i like some marx too i happen to like the glossy green gi’s and that last set of marx astronauts they put out in the early 70’s are a new favorite of mine for a long time i avoided marx because of how expensive it gets collecting them but i definitely am a convert in the ways of marx thier not bad i just don’t like them as much as my tim mee m16/vietnam poses
this is just little side note to all who are interested but along side my valued yellow,teal and pink figures i do have some marx prototype figures that come in neon atomic red i never knew they existed but wanted to ask if anybody knows where they came from
i heard Kellogg made them as a test to see if the molds were working properly when they purchased the company sometime in the 60’s/70’s i got them at otsn this year(first time ever going great show but the prices were insane) also saw a deuce and a half in red the guy wanted 300 dollars for it i offered him 50 bucks which was insane but i liked it if anyone has anything in neon colors that’s army find me and beat me over the head with offers i eat this crap up also purple is my favorite color fyi so im bound to buy it if its in funky or neon color
Henry you have a number things I have to reply. First in regards Kellogg’s did not have any interest in Marx and did not buy the company. Quaker Oats bought the company before selling to English company that bought a number of toy companies before going under. I have not heard of the Marx 54mm army neon red being test shots.
If you want to decide to do a blog, it is a lot of work. One thing you will have decide if you want to do a free blog from google or do your own web site. I do the latter. I reccomend Word Press and you can get very good training from Skillwise.
No you did not get the Timmee from me as they were normal color. They were part of three box lot I bought this month. I put the PP army as a lark. They sold.
yeah Quaker oats my bad i heard someone had a whole box down in there basement apparently(what a lucky guy) allot of people bought them how ever they were brought to market is unknown to me i got a hold of them none the less all the people at the Chicago show knew about it if you got a email i will send a photo i don’t know much its what the man i bought them from told me they were test runs and never suppose to be actually sold for whatever reason i think their cool as heck and don’t see why i always wanted red army men as kid for whatever reason red was my favorite color at the time
My email is pestad@gmail.com
k im sending you a email rn feel free to write a post about it the more attention it gets the better chance i get at actually locating someone with items i want
k i sent you the email enjoy sorry for bad quality was taken with cell phone now you see i wasn’t kidding their pretty sweet right?
that metallic green flamethrower iv’e had in my collection since that day at the beach i remember it was the first day i had baja blast mountain dew from taco bell what a experience the flame thrower was always my favorite as a kid btw
Must have been John Stengel Jr’s room. he had a complete set of Timmee Russians in Red and a matching truck. He used to have a bunch of translucent blue Marx GI’s that were rumored to be part of some give away, they used to pop up on E-Bay all the time , but the guy wanted like $30.00 each. I still have two Timmee Russians in day glow green, same pose though.
mine are translucent red
please find a picture im new to collecting marx and i would love to see them honestly i’ve seen a picture of like 6 red tim mee deuce and a half lined up and it made me feel limp inside knowing i will never be lucky enough to find stuff like that i hope someone has mercy on me and cuts me a deal of a life time one day
There is no pity in toy soldier collectors city.
Tim mee(PP) military line is been cover extense in a website blog already with history of company and year production.
I have link but not in phone now.Sorry.
Later I will post it as I did before here.
Unless some one does x me
The neon and odd colors were used resently again in the viet nam Gis reissues too, included pink.
They had been sold inside easter basket too and not the copies please.
Best.
LOL. Never mine …admin post it up.I just saw it .that link show all colors and head card made .
X me is nothing rare I see then very often.
My thoughts.
Best
i just sent admin some photos for you guys to share and look at enjoy
The question was asked (and I don’t know if it was answered) about how we could tell the motives of the producer from the color of plastic in figures. I know back in the late 90s or was it early 2000s? a Mexican company got hold of some old Marx molds and started issuing them in day-glow colors (I know, blasphemy, right?); every now and then I see some appear on ebay. While I was glad the figures were available the colors were off-putting to me (in spite of the fact I paint many of my figures) and I understand the plastic was of poor quality. I know I got some figures from Mexico in the “right” colors right before that and many were broken in the bag. But I wander…
Anyway, I heard from several sellers at the time the guy (or company) said their stated purposes was to attract children to the toy soldiers in these days of colorful action figures like GI Joes and Star Wars through bright colors. I don’t know how sales went, but it was an enormous “fail” in my opinion. Then again, had I not had my quota of Marx “recasts” filled I might have been tempted to buy them and paint them to suit.
But this is a case we were informed by the manufacturer of the figures as to motive.
Having lived through the Vietnam era as an Army brat and then as a soldier – I experienced first-hand the anti-war and anti-military sentiment that prevailed in the nation at the time. We saw many long-time and beloved toy manufacturers close their doors as sales of military themed toys faded. The last Fort Apache playset I remember seeing using all-Marx molds was a Mego incarnation; I picked up one of those around 1979 in a Western Auto store. I also remember picking up some Marx sets in the “Cereal Boxes” perhaps a year or two before that – that was how I got their Japanese figures at long last.
Timmee figures had been around as long as I remember, but though, like MPC, probably had their place in about every boy’s army – they were considered generic as one could buy the World War 2 style figures in bags in about every dime store (there’s another dead concept – I guess inflation makes them dollar stores now) and at cheap prices so I know I had a ton of them. I remember some excitement when the Vietnam figures came out, they were a bit more elegantly sculpted than their older brothers and fit pretty well with Marx (except for their more modern weapons – and I think we’re still trying to figure out what the MG is supposed to be). But again, there were so many of them everywhere they became generic.
Having said all that, considering the times and competition and other factors I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume the motive in doing the day-glow colored figures was to remove the bitter taste of Nam from the toys. Sadly ironic considering their subject matter, I think. And then, OD green is such a drab color, isn’t it? (pun intended).
Add the multitude of “Genuine” Timmee figures available back then and still around in attics, basements, and sandboxes almost everywhere – add to that the even greater number of Hong Kong knockoffs, it’s little wonder there is so little apparent demand for them. One might say they were doomed by their own success?
that mg you can’t put your finger on in the tim mee set is a prototype stoner machine gun these figures i believe were released a little before they realized the m60 was a better option
Henry, all these years i just assumed the sculptor was enamored of the bren gun, but after researching the stoner 63, i think you’ve nailed it.
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/uploads/pics/stoner63_03.jpg
its not arcane knowledge friend i know cause of the website thor trains and the face book tim mee page but don’t feel as though im being insulting it baffled me all throughout my childhood i wasn’t kidding when i said i fanatically researched tim mee down to the bones i hate how much of it has become obscured over the years you would think someone from the company would have left some documentation i honestly like the choice of mg because it really adds some unique flavor to the set and is intriguing to say the least
No insult taken, Henry. Most of us are here to learn as well as swap ideas and opinions, I think. I’ve read that, too, somewhere – it was just a throwaway comment.
The M-60 was a pretty nice weapon and reliable. The belt feed had advantages over the magazine system. I can’t say much for the Stoner as the first I’d ever heard of it was a few years back when we were kicking the Timmee gun around (here or one of the Timmee blogs).
Thinking about it, I think I had come to the same conclusion as OIF-Retread that it was supposed to be a Bren- it looked pretty much like the Brens my Airfix British figures used so…
but hey, we played with them. By the same token, did the Marx machinegunner rip the gun off a WWI fighter?
Dinamicos is the company that has many of the Marx molds. They first did them in bright colors in a stiff plastic. There was a lot of breakage. they were finally did correct colors and better plastic. They show up today in a silver due supposily they would be sued if they did them in correct colors.
Wayene. The multicolor runs in mexico , also done in Spain in toy figure are call “fiesta color” and done in purpose as pinata fillers as most Marx former toys are sold in party supply stores in mexico since 80s.
Same goes x all toys mold run from Dom and Leyla in Mexico since 90s.
Best
Thanks for the info; confirms what I’d heard. The plastic on those early figures was pretty bad. I saw the party favor packs on ebay for some years; not so many now.
A few years ago (longer than I care to think if I really think about it) I bought my oldest grandson a “Marx” Civil War set on ebay from a seller based in Mexico. It had many of the accessories that came in the old set (minus the mansion – but I had an extra or two so I threw that in); the figures were in metallic blues and grays though, something that didn’t seem to bother the kid much. It wasn’t a bad set at a pretty good price and I was happy to give my grandson at least a piece of one of my great Christmas memories.
I figured the fellow was the same guy with the Ben Hur sets. I wonder if the guy’s still in business or even doing the Civil War sets anymore. After doing the Alamo sets for three sets of grandsons this year I’m thinking that would be a nicer and more economical solution for next year – it would definitely save me a LOT of time…
The playset you bough are the old stock from Plastimarx that was the marx factory in mexico under actual mexico ownership since 1971.Many small company enter business and repack the those playset under their name brand to be sold in dime retail large mexican stores.There some sellers still around selling it from back old stock Mexican run playset. I got few direct contact.
Metallic colors figures were made till 80s in Mexico till change over to worst fiesta colors and bad plastic to be sold at party supply stores in 90s to early 2000.
The alamo mexican were made in metallic colors as well ww2 sets in metallic green, copper and blue.I have mint bags of them that kept as samples.
I have many mexican contacts and some family direct plastimarx ones too with whom i share info often
The plastic used in fiesta figures last production is same used in coca cola cap and else cases in mexico. Good x large resistance but poor to capture small detail .
They get it from there direct.
By using it they had affect too some molds.
Also molds need retouching and maintenance after decades.Many had not and deep detail is lost because of it.
only few molds are reused today per contract of local stores chain in mexico and one or two US buyers .But quantities to be run are typical in thousands shots poer mold that for today hobby business is very hard to move out in years.
Best
I had a feeling you might have known more about them Erwin. Once again, you came through. Thanks for the confirmation on my suspicions. Alas, the sets are probably gone or gone up… Either way, I doubt I’ll be able to swing three of them for next Christmas. Sometimes we just have to “make do.”
While the origins of the sets may be Plastimarx, the playset came in the U.S. under Dinamicos label. As I mention before they showed up at a New York Toy Fair where I ordered the sets. These sets have been available over the years by various sources.
Processed Plastic took over Tim-Mee Toys in the summer 1964 (Jan. 1 1965 for tax purposes). They continued to use the Tim-Mee Toys name as well as the Processed Plastic name on bags of figures. For a short while they also used BEE LINE toys with a happy bee logo as well. You could buy more or less the same figures in header card bags marked with the three different names. I visited PPCo in 2004. They had one building for Processed Plastic Offices and another one for Tim-mee Toys and the divisions operated with some autonomy. I asked about the bright colors the armymen, cowboys and Indians were made in. There was a two part response. The Vietnam war had caused a serious drop in sales of all military related toys in the US. Using bright colors in toys was a way to attract the attention of small children in stores so it was decided to put the figure lines into the brighter colors to try to boost sales. The armymen were made in pink, yellow, blue & bright green while the cowboys and Indians were made in the same colors except for pink. I was told these colors sold very well and sales rebounded, Desert Storm had them revert to using army green and tan for the soldiers and bright blue for the air gun ship.
i have the translucent blue tim mees aswell as some solid matte blue tim mees i heard they were produced in red from the tim mee blog but all i’ve ever seen was ink if so they would look nice next to my red marx gi’s
I know a little about the ANDY GARD guys with British Helmets. I have a small group running on the Evil Bay right now in fact. I saw them on a UK web page about 2 years ago in a long box but the seller wanted an outrageous price. I later found these guys just in a bag at a toy show. My figures do not have “Hong Kong” under the bases BUT 2 of them are in RED. All the accessories except for the helmets are the same as the American Army. A shame that they did not produce Sten Guns and Enfield rifles for these boys.
Thanks Mike! First time I saw them in person when I bought them earlier this week. Nice figures and since I got 17 of them I might do a couple conversions with them.