Sloppy Research Alert Rubenstein International, one of the companies that I and others have had an interest is a small company called Rubenstein International. This company released a series of bags containing what had been premium offerings. Hugh Walter of Small Scale World recently published an article on Rubenstein which contained a number of mistakes. I am going to look at the major one on figures.
Sloppy Research Alert Rubenstein International Details
This is a header card that has been in my collection for years. I got it in the 1980s when I took my mother for a ride. At a closeout shop, I found a figure bag with the attached header card. The figures were copies of Airfix.
The card is interesting on several levels. First, it is the first example that Rubenstein bought items from Hong Kong. Second, the card has a stock number which many of the other cards do not have. The main reason it confirms that Rubenstein did figures. Hugh is trying to say that Rubenstein never did Soldiers of the World. If you notice in the photo above the figures are called Soldiers of World War II. So it is likely they did a header card Soldiers of the World. The Soldiers of the World were cereal premiums that had been popular in Europe. They like many of the items used by Rubenstein International were from R & L which had been taken over and moved to Mexico.
The problem with Rubenstein International there is not a lot of information. Kent Sprecher has a well-researched article which hopefully will be published later this year. I will be looking through my material that I have to what else I may have and share it with you here.
Notice Political Correct German Flag.
Same for Japanese Army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag
of course as a kid I didn’t knew about the Kyokujitsu-ki but felt a little bit fooled by our Federal Flag added to the Hong-Kong Airfix copies when I got those. At this time the model kits I built hasn’t been purged or censored and came with historicly correct markings. Only joking for sure. Or to quote the Model-Fan magazine from those days after change in legislation on that topic ‘Come on lets built pirates from now on’.