Plastic Figure Showcase August 2022 Mystery Army Figures, I start this post off with the Nabisco 60mm army done in three inches. Also, I share some of the figures I received from my very good friend Peter Evans.
Three Inch Army Figures
As I had mentioned before I was able to acquire earlier this year’s items from a massive plastic collection that surfaced earlier this year. A mystery that showed up was the above figures. I immediately recognized them as the Nabisco army figures. One problem was the figures are three inches tall. Why were they made that was the question. I had no idea until I was doing research for a friend. I spotted a photo showing the figures with a pressed steel army truck. When I went back I could not find the photo.
I talked with Kent Sprecher of Toy Soldier Headquarters. He had not seen these figures before either but agreed that they were very likely used with a large pressed steel army truck. The maker went to the company that did the Nabisco figures. The company made upscale figures for the company. Now, we have to find the company. Do you know?
Plastic Figure Showcase August 2022 Peter Evans Figures
One of the bright spots during my health issue was a package of figures from my very good friend Peter Evans. These four figures stood out from the figures. The man standing reading the paper will go perfectly in the Untouchable setting I am planning. Lone Star made the Union officer next to the civilian. Lone Star would resume the pose with their Foreign Legion figures. To the right of the Union, the figure is a Startlux Napoleon in a greatcoat. I have no idea who made the soft plastic figure on the far right.
One note I am using temporarily camera stands as I have to clean a safe path to my regular area.
Hello Stad! I am very glad to see you posting again and on the road to recovery. The figure on the far right looks a lot like the early Airfix ’18th Century Fusilier’, one of the eight poses from Airfix’s very first plastic toy soldiers. From somewhere around the late 1940’s. They were also issued by an Australian company (Pierwood Plastics) and they called this pose ‘Pirate’. I have a few of the eight poses and I am hoping to eventually collect all eight figures.
Hello, Paul.
The “Mystery Figures”…the one with pistol and hand raised; and the prone firing
resemble the Lido soldiers in my collection. Buddy L and Marx both produced pressed steel Army trucks, as I recall. I had a set of those trucks, possibly Marx, very briefly when I was a boy. One had a working searchlight; another was a troop transport with cloth “tarp”; the third was a working wheeled conveyor belt.
I recall that the Nabisco soldiers were produced by Lido, but they were the smaller versions. I didn’t know about the three-inch.
I have several of the Nabisco soldiers. I can remember obtaining them from the boxes of cereal when I was young.
I always liked them because of their great details and poses.
Looking through my plastic figure collection, I have come across two to three variations of these GI.’s .
There are the regular chocolate colors like the guys posted above,
and another type that are lighter in color, and slightly smaller.
I assume that they are ” knock-Offs”, of the original Nabisco figures , that were produced by another company.
Tony moves his to Ohio business as he move from state no long ago .it was posted here no long ago .He keep selling all his old stock produced and manage bring some molds off china as well to the US.
Best…
Hi Mike
I am slowly recovering. I saw my surgeon on the 9th for a follow-up. She was very pleased with my progress. My walking is slowly getting better. I have some other problems which will take time to heal.
I bought a bag of AIP WW1 French years ago, have never looked at their website before.
Lots of items & figures there but I can’t see pictures of the actual figures. Are there photos posted there and I just don’t see them?
Hang in there. I have to tell you that I find you very inspirational in the way you handle adversity. I’ve had my own health issues for the past 2 yrs but am finally getting back to
where I was.
Talk to you soon
The GI cereal premium soldiers were made for Kelloggs (not Nabisco) in 1958. Eight of the 14 poses were copies of Marx figures four of which had been copied by Lido (who put netting on the helmets, Marx had smooth helmets). I have a hard time deciding who made the prone shooter. The other six premium figures were copies of the other six Lido GIs. Former Lido owner Effrem Arenstein told me Lido had nothing to do with the cereal premiums. I have thought that the mold maker may have previously made molds for Marx & Lido and simply reused his master sculpts but I have no proof of that.
My Mother would never allow me to open the Kelloggs Corn Flakes Box from the bottom so I could get to the figure faster than working my way down,also dumping the whole box into one of her mixing bowls was a definite NO NO.And yes when I was older she gave all my Comics away to the nice little neighbour boy who wasn’t as well off as us and who promptly trashed them!!
My mom was the same way – I had to EAT my way down to the toys inside. My dad came home on leave to our “homestead” (the house we owned and stayed at when we weren’t following Dad on his assignments) after I joined the Army and decided to clean out my closet. He burned all my comic books and baseball cards.
Mom was so ticked (I wasn’t happy either). She never let him forget it, either. Nor did I. Any time there was something on the local news about a comic book selling for a large sum of money or this or that baseball card selling for so much, it seemed I’d had it in my collection and I would mention it. That would get Mom started. It became a family joke.
I’m just glad I gave my toy soldier collection to my younger brothers. They eventually gave them back to me when I settled down myself.
It worked out for my youngest brothers, though. When they went off and joined the Navy, Mom preserved their shared bedroom (they were twins) just as they left it, even to the underwear and socks in the drawers they never retrieved. They said they didn’t want to spoil the shrine.
When Mom died back in 2012, it was a bittersweet thing for us to go in and finally take that stuff out.
I was lucky. My mom let us dump out the cereal and get the prize. She knew 4 growing boys in the 1960’s were gonna eat that cereal in no time. She also bought the Frito-Lay variety packs of chips that had dinosaur premiums ( MPC, I’m pretty sure).
She knew these toys stimulated our interest in History and Natural Science.
She even took a few detours in our heavy-metal blue Chevy Impala station wagon while on family road trips to take us to Lookout Mountain, Vicksburg, and Camp Moore, La.
(I’m betting many readers can relate to being hauled around in those station wagons that were built like tanks in the 1960’s!).
She also kept all of our old Marvel/DC comics and MAD magazines… and most of our toys (AND the boxes/instructions!).
In 1996, I stumbled across an issue of PFPC that immediately inspired me to start collecting and recapturing the memories.
I asked her if she knew what happened to my Civil War toy soldiers. Without a pause, she said, “Oh, they’re in a shoebox in the closet.” She commented that she thought the figures were ALL Confederates because the MARX blue was so light (she grew up in Mississippi after all.)
Mom turned 90 last month. Still drives, knows w-a-a-a-ay more about computers than I do, and makes the best cole slaw in the state of Texas!
I’m sorry for those that have lost their moms. If you are reading this and your mom is still alive, ya better make the time and git on a visit! You’ll be glad you did.
You are blessed to still have your mother. I used to kid mine saying, “Mom, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you – but I sure don’t want to do without you.” Eventually, it’s something we face.
We had a 72 Chevy Townsman station wagon we took to Germany with us when we went. Boy! Did we stand out in the “crowd.”
I know I had an interesting time driving it when I got my German driver’s license over there.
I often tell the story (one of my best memories, I apologize if I’ve shared it here before) of how we travelled to Normandy for the 30th Anniversary of D-Day in 1974. Dad was trying to negotiate that big tank of a car for streets that were laid out in the Middle Ages for ox carts. We came to the town square of Arromanches, site of the British Gold Beach and the D-Day Museum. As I recall the town square opened to the beach; on that day it was filled with literally thousands of people, including a swarm of French schoolchildren there for “Liberation Day.”
Dad was trying to “wade” through the crowd when a French schoolgirl looked at the huge car, then down at the license plates and saw the US Armed Forces license plate. Her face lit up and she nudged her friend shouting, “Americain! Americain!”
The next thing we knew all these French schoolkids were shouting “Vive le Americain” (sorry if my French is wrong). It still makes my allergies act up to think about it.
WOW! What a great experience! Did your dad know enough French or German to interact with the crowd? Sounds like it was probably too loud and chaotic to be heard anyway.
I work at a TV station. On the 50th Anniversary of D-Day, we assigned a young (23) reporter to find a local vet who had participated and do a feature story on him.
After gathering the camera and microphone, she pulled me aside and asked in quiet desperation, “Now…who were we fighting… and what happened..?”
Unrelated: Here is a link to a small diorama I still maintain. I packed away my gigantic one. You may have to copy link and paste in browser.
My dad had absolutely NO gift for languages that we could ever ascertain; driving around Europe it led to some interesting and funny stories. We were in the car that day anyway, so couldn’t interact – and it was chaotic. That day in Normandy ranks up there with hearing the Grenadian people dancing in the streets and singing “God Bless America!” the night we were able to lift the curfew on them.
Love the diorama. ACW is one of my favorite eras in both my scales.
That must have been so amazing. Too bad we didn’t have VHS camcorders or iPhones then. Can you imagine the footage…and with audio?!?
BTW–I hope you will post some photos of your 28mm figures here. It’s not all about 54mm.
I’ve often thought it was a shame we didn’t have camcorders. It was an awesome experience. I lost an uncle in France in 1944 and I always associated the campaign with him, even though he came across later as part of 3rd Army. But I thought of him that day and his sacrifice.
I haven’t set up any of my figures in a couple years – been dealing with health issues (and getting to my guys with my storage problems). I collect 54mm and 1/72 (more 25mm). When I discovered 28mm I was tempted to get into the scale but figured I had enough to say grace over with the two scales I was in to and was getting too old to start a third scale.
Wayne–the links came through in all their majesty. The painting on the 1/32 Prussians is fantastic. And I can see the appeal of having the 28mm soldiers forming up and advancing on the battlefield. Great painting and digital EFX, BTW.
I KNOW there are other hobbyist that visit this site. I hope they will post some photos of their painted/converted figures. The late Ed Borris was a genius converter, and Greg Liska is very clever at converting figures and structures that capture the fun of those childhood days of playing with toy soldier sets on the living room carpet or in the sandbox.
Paul & Laurie created this site because of their love for what we all love. Stad’s Stuff is OUR stuff!
The smaller scale is great for mass formations, while the 1/32 works great for smaller actions. Back when I used to tell stories with my pictures I would often work with both scales using the 1/72 for panoramic shots and then doing some “closeups” with 1/32 scale figures. Not often, I really didn’t start painting any of my 1/32 figures until recently, preferring to keep them “pristine” as I used to play with them when I was a kid.
I only started painting 1/32 after I received some Napoleonic Masters from HaT; I painted them up and took pictures to share with others so they’d know what the new sets were going to look like. Then I started painting all the 1/32 HaT Napoleonics. Then I got on my ongoing (temporarily stalled) Alamo project…
The figure on right was made in Australia as part of a series in similar static poses.
Hello Stad! I am very glad to see you posting again and on the road to recovery. The figure on the far right looks a lot like the early Airfix ’18th Century Fusilier’, one of the eight poses from Airfix’s very first plastic toy soldiers. From somewhere around the late 1940’s. They were also issued by an Australian company (Pierwood Plastics) and they called this pose ‘Pirate’. I have a few of the eight poses and I am hoping to eventually collect all eight figures.
Hello, Paul.
The “Mystery Figures”…the one with pistol and hand raised; and the prone firing
resemble the Lido soldiers in my collection. Buddy L and Marx both produced pressed steel Army trucks, as I recall. I had a set of those trucks, possibly Marx, very briefly when I was a boy. One had a working searchlight; another was a troop transport with cloth “tarp”; the third was a working wheeled conveyor belt.
I recall that the Nabisco soldiers were produced by Lido, but they were the smaller versions. I didn’t know about the three-inch.
I have several of the Nabisco soldiers. I can remember obtaining them from the boxes of cereal when I was young.
I always liked them because of their great details and poses.
Looking through my plastic figure collection, I have come across two to three variations of these GI.’s .
There are the regular chocolate colors like the guys posted above,
and another type that are lighter in color, and slightly smaller.
I assume that they are ” knock-Offs”, of the original Nabisco figures , that were produced by another company.
Hey Paul,
Hope you’re recovering.
Just noticed armies in plastic is now in Ohio? Did Tony sell? What’s going on?
Mike Westbay
Tony moves his to Ohio business as he move from state no long ago .it was posted here no long ago .He keep selling all his old stock produced and manage bring some molds off china as well to the US.
Best…
Thanks Erwin DNK how I missed this.
Hi Mike
I am slowly recovering. I saw my surgeon on the 9th for a follow-up. She was very pleased with my progress. My walking is slowly getting better. I have some other problems which will take time to heal.
I bought a bag of AIP WW1 French years ago, have never looked at their website before.
Lots of items & figures there but I can’t see pictures of the actual figures. Are there photos posted there and I just don’t see them?
Hi,
Some have pics. You have to click on the box to see actual pics.
Thank you!
Hang in there. I have to tell you that I find you very inspirational in the way you handle adversity. I’ve had my own health issues for the past 2 yrs but am finally getting back to
where I was.
Talk to you soon
Glad to hear you’re doing better, Paul!
The GI cereal premium soldiers were made for Kelloggs (not Nabisco) in 1958. Eight of the 14 poses were copies of Marx figures four of which had been copied by Lido (who put netting on the helmets, Marx had smooth helmets). I have a hard time deciding who made the prone shooter. The other six premium figures were copies of the other six Lido GIs. Former Lido owner Effrem Arenstein told me Lido had nothing to do with the cereal premiums. I have thought that the mold maker may have previously made molds for Marx & Lido and simply reused his master sculpts but I have no proof of that.
One of my favourite figures was the Officer with Captain Bars on his helmet.
My Mother would never allow me to open the Kelloggs Corn Flakes Box from the bottom so I could get to the figure faster than working my way down,also dumping the whole box into one of her mixing bowls was a definite NO NO.And yes when I was older she gave all my Comics away to the nice little neighbour boy who wasn’t as well off as us and who promptly trashed them!!
My mom was the same way – I had to EAT my way down to the toys inside. My dad came home on leave to our “homestead” (the house we owned and stayed at when we weren’t following Dad on his assignments) after I joined the Army and decided to clean out my closet. He burned all my comic books and baseball cards.
Mom was so ticked (I wasn’t happy either). She never let him forget it, either. Nor did I. Any time there was something on the local news about a comic book selling for a large sum of money or this or that baseball card selling for so much, it seemed I’d had it in my collection and I would mention it. That would get Mom started. It became a family joke.
I’m just glad I gave my toy soldier collection to my younger brothers. They eventually gave them back to me when I settled down myself.
It worked out for my youngest brothers, though. When they went off and joined the Navy, Mom preserved their shared bedroom (they were twins) just as they left it, even to the underwear and socks in the drawers they never retrieved. They said they didn’t want to spoil the shrine.
When Mom died back in 2012, it was a bittersweet thing for us to go in and finally take that stuff out.
I was lucky. My mom let us dump out the cereal and get the prize. She knew 4 growing boys in the 1960’s were gonna eat that cereal in no time. She also bought the Frito-Lay variety packs of chips that had dinosaur premiums ( MPC, I’m pretty sure).
She knew these toys stimulated our interest in History and Natural Science.
She even took a few detours in our heavy-metal blue Chevy Impala station wagon while on family road trips to take us to Lookout Mountain, Vicksburg, and Camp Moore, La.
(I’m betting many readers can relate to being hauled around in those station wagons that were built like tanks in the 1960’s!).
She also kept all of our old Marvel/DC comics and MAD magazines… and most of our toys (AND the boxes/instructions!).
In 1996, I stumbled across an issue of PFPC that immediately inspired me to start collecting and recapturing the memories.
I asked her if she knew what happened to my Civil War toy soldiers. Without a pause, she said, “Oh, they’re in a shoebox in the closet.” She commented that she thought the figures were ALL Confederates because the MARX blue was so light (she grew up in Mississippi after all.)
Mom turned 90 last month. Still drives, knows w-a-a-a-ay more about computers than I do, and makes the best cole slaw in the state of Texas!
I’m sorry for those that have lost their moms. If you are reading this and your mom is still alive, ya better make the time and git on a visit! You’ll be glad you did.
You are blessed to still have your mother. I used to kid mine saying, “Mom, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you – but I sure don’t want to do without you.” Eventually, it’s something we face.
We had a 72 Chevy Townsman station wagon we took to Germany with us when we went. Boy! Did we stand out in the “crowd.”
I know I had an interesting time driving it when I got my German driver’s license over there.
I often tell the story (one of my best memories, I apologize if I’ve shared it here before) of how we travelled to Normandy for the 30th Anniversary of D-Day in 1974. Dad was trying to negotiate that big tank of a car for streets that were laid out in the Middle Ages for ox carts. We came to the town square of Arromanches, site of the British Gold Beach and the D-Day Museum. As I recall the town square opened to the beach; on that day it was filled with literally thousands of people, including a swarm of French schoolchildren there for “Liberation Day.”
Dad was trying to “wade” through the crowd when a French schoolgirl looked at the huge car, then down at the license plates and saw the US Armed Forces license plate. Her face lit up and she nudged her friend shouting, “Americain! Americain!”
The next thing we knew all these French schoolkids were shouting “Vive le Americain” (sorry if my French is wrong). It still makes my allergies act up to think about it.
WOW! What a great experience! Did your dad know enough French or German to interact with the crowd? Sounds like it was probably too loud and chaotic to be heard anyway.
I work at a TV station. On the 50th Anniversary of D-Day, we assigned a young (23) reporter to find a local vet who had participated and do a feature story on him.
After gathering the camera and microphone, she pulled me aside and asked in quiet desperation, “Now…who were we fighting… and what happened..?”
Unrelated: Here is a link to a small diorama I still maintain. I packed away my gigantic one. You may have to copy link and paste in browser.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/65owvQxdmAzGudCC8
My dad had absolutely NO gift for languages that we could ever ascertain; driving around Europe it led to some interesting and funny stories. We were in the car that day anyway, so couldn’t interact – and it was chaotic. That day in Normandy ranks up there with hearing the Grenadian people dancing in the streets and singing “God Bless America!” the night we were able to lift the curfew on them.
Love the diorama. ACW is one of my favorite eras in both my scales.
That must have been so amazing. Too bad we didn’t have VHS camcorders or iPhones then. Can you imagine the footage…and with audio?!?
BTW–I hope you will post some photos of your 28mm figures here. It’s not all about 54mm.
I’ve often thought it was a shame we didn’t have camcorders. It was an awesome experience. I lost an uncle in France in 1944 and I always associated the campaign with him, even though he came across later as part of 3rd Army. But I thought of him that day and his sacrifice.
I haven’t set up any of my figures in a couple years – been dealing with health issues (and getting to my guys with my storage problems). I collect 54mm and 1/72 (more 25mm). When I discovered 28mm I was tempted to get into the scale but figured I had enough to say grace over with the two scales I was in to and was getting too old to start a third scale.
Here’s a link to some of my 1/72 scale shots:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Zex6d
Let me know if this link works, I have it “hidden” and can’t seem to “unhide” it.
https://imgur.com/a/IU6yI12
I think I fixed the other one. Here’s some more:
https://imgur.com/gallery/6FHgm
Wayne–the links came through in all their majesty. The painting on the 1/32 Prussians is fantastic. And I can see the appeal of having the 28mm soldiers forming up and advancing on the battlefield. Great painting and digital EFX, BTW.
I KNOW there are other hobbyist that visit this site. I hope they will post some photos of their painted/converted figures. The late Ed Borris was a genius converter, and Greg Liska is very clever at converting figures and structures that capture the fun of those childhood days of playing with toy soldier sets on the living room carpet or in the sandbox.
Paul & Laurie created this site because of their love for what we all love. Stad’s Stuff is OUR stuff!
Glad you liked them.
The smaller scale is great for mass formations, while the 1/32 works great for smaller actions. Back when I used to tell stories with my pictures I would often work with both scales using the 1/72 for panoramic shots and then doing some “closeups” with 1/32 scale figures. Not often, I really didn’t start painting any of my 1/32 figures until recently, preferring to keep them “pristine” as I used to play with them when I was a kid.
I only started painting 1/32 after I received some Napoleonic Masters from HaT; I painted them up and took pictures to share with others so they’d know what the new sets were going to look like. Then I started painting all the 1/32 HaT Napoleonics. Then I got on my ongoing (temporarily stalled) Alamo project…