1970s - Knights compared to Ferrero (2 Viewers)

[fisch-cio]

Dear collectors,

I am a collector of German Kinder surprise Figures, out of Kinder surprise eggs by Ferrero; I am sure you know them.

Since my favourite figures are knights i decided to contact some experts (you ) to get some help in the following case.

There are 3 knights by Ferrero that look nearly exatly like knights who i assume have been released previously in Britain by Britains.

You can see what i am taling about on the following famous German page:
http://eierlei.de/index.php?R=55&articleID=131

Since i actually could find some of these knights in different verions in online stores, i wonder:
- Have the been released by Britains and then been redesigned and bought by Ferrero? Or has Ferrero bought these Figures from Britains? Or has Britains bought them from Ferrero?

- What are these three figures called in England (nams)

- And how many editions have there been?

I (and a lot of other collectors too) would be very content if you could give us any information on this issues!

Thanks a lot,
Christian

 

[thebritfarmer]

Welcome Christian,

I think that Kinder may have just used the Britains knights for inspiration. They are very close but not exactly the same and that is how they probably got around the copyright. Britains has made many knights over the years. I don't think they ever really gave their figures names. There is a website which may be of some use to you, I will post it when I get home as I don't have the link and cannot remember the website

Scott

 

[fisch-cio]

Dear Scott,

thank you for your kind response. That sounds logical.
So you do not think that there has been any collaboration between Britains or any other firm to produce some kind of "no-name" figures?

The strange thing is that these knights do not have any label or mark on them; and since Ferrero - in their first days - bought most of their figures instead of manufacturing them.
These figures of Ferrero on the other hand are of higher quality than those of Britain.
Strange thing

I#M looking forward to the link; do you also have any information on when/where these figures appeared first and whether they've been "relaunched" in a new edition?

Best regards
Christian

 

[theBaron]

Servus, Christian, wilkommen ins Forum!

Ich bin der gleichen Meinung als der Scott, das sind Kopien der Britains-Figuren. Ich nehme an, Ferrero habe sie damals in Hong Kong fertigen lassen.

Die Britains-Figuren, die in dem Webpage abgebildet sind, sind aus der "Deetails"-Serie, wenn ich mich nicht irre, wegen der grünen Basisplatte aus Zinn.

Ein guter Rätsel aber, und guter Anfang im Treefrog!

Also, prosit!
Brad

 

[thebritfarmer]

Here is the website Christian


http://www.angelfire.com/biz/toysoldierhq/Britknights.html

It is possible that Britains did make them, but I wonder why they would chnage the design (ever so slightly) if it was them that made them.

It appears that these figures first made an appearance in 1973. Some of them have been re-issued

 

[fisch-cio]

Hey Scott, thanks a lot.

"The first series Deetail foot knights were first made in 1973. In about 1991 [...] were deleted from production [...]"

Does that mean that they have been produced in 1973 or from 1973 to 1991 in the same way?
Does anybody know something on the re-issued figures? I find some in UK auctions that for eample have been released in 2007 - pretty cool to follow that development.

So you think that Ferrero basically copied them without permission? Hmmm
That's all very interesting because these Ferrero figures are very rare and achieve high values (up to 300 € for one)

Greetings,
Christian

 

[theBaron]

I think the figures in the Ferrero "surprise eggs" are copies, but they're probably sufficiently altered as to make suing for infringement difficult. It looks like they were copied, but designed a la the Swoppet figures, with a peg-and-hole join at the waist.

I had cowboys and Indians like that when I was a kid, for example. I know they weren't Britain's Swoppets, but they were made according to that design. Heads and headgear were interchangeable, heads plugged into the torso, and the torso plugged into the waist, and the feet plugged into green plastic bases. I remember that the cowboys' gun belts were also separate pieces, and the Indians had removable weapons and accessories, too.
They came in a bag of 100 figures, sold in grocery stores or drug stores, and made in Hong Kong.

Those knights remind me of those figures. I can't imagine that if Britains made the figures, that wouldn't have been recorded someplace. Maybe Norman Joplin might see this and might be able to shed some light.

Prost!
Brad

 

[fisch-cio]

Yes these knights actually have "a peg-and-hole join at the waist" and came like that:
http://www.eierlei.de/images/article/rundumsei/ritter/ei.gif
(Source again eierlei.de - big German site)

We (Surprise collectors) do not think that they've been sold elsewhere, but if a company in Hong Kong would've made them it's pretty probable that they would have been sold to other companies besides Ferrero.
However, as I said, these figures do not appear often.

Unfortunately I don't know who you're talking about, but I hope he'll join this topic.
Ferrero unfortunately does not give out a lot of information on the toys they had included.

 

[theBaron]

An interesting coincidence...over in another thread ("If anybody knows" in Britains), Ales has pictures of the Britains cowboys and Indians that I was talking about.

Mine looked very similar, but they were Hong Kong knock-offs.

 

[maloyalo]

Hi Christian,

I have seen a few of the later Kinder Egg knights before, but not these. (Cool link..thanks)

Just some observations. The Britains Deetail knights came out around 1973 like has been said.

The very first year the knights spear (or halberd) was a two piece spear. The shaft was metal and the spearhead plastic, and it could be seperated. Sometime shortly afterwards they went to the all plastic and slightly shorter spear.

There has been no real modification to these figures since. They have been made in several different paint schemes and with different style shield decals and with different color plastic used, but never as two-piece figures swiveling at the waist. I believe they were made past 1991, and probably until fairly recently. They change the names of the knights from time to time and add poses, but have issued some of these poses fairly regularly for decades. I don't follow britains latest though.

One interesting detail is the shield decals used. Those are from Britains 'Herald' brand knights, which were only made in Hong Kong. I forget the exact years but probably something like 1968-76.

Hong Kong was and is regularly copying soldiers with various degrees of change, and I have seen very close copies of britains deetail knights (but only one-piece like the originals) and britains swoppet knights and the timpo crusaders since the 70's. Not all copies were marked HK.

But how they fit them in those eggs sometimes is the most amazing thing!

 

[fisch-cio]

Thank you for your information.
As you have seen the lance of the "kinder" figure is also a two piece weapon and could therefore easily be distinguished from the Britains weapon.
Nice to know that Britains had a two-piece weapon in former years also.
To me this means that these figures have been fabricated around 1973.

Ferrero actually included a lot of toys with "HK 1973" on them in the eggs. In the end of the last year some of these figures appeared in HUGE amounts in the USA, where the prices in Germany dropped, for several figures, from 200-300 € to 1-5 $. This was very frustrating for a lot of collectors.
This meant that Ferrero was not the only customer of the company who produced these figures.
Now, I am interested in whether this could happen to the knights also, because if they would have been fabricated in HK more of them should have appeared over the years. Also the high quality of these knights... do you really all think that they've been fabricated there? Or maybe on demand of Ferrero?

The thing with the shields is interesting, I'm going to take a closer look on that. The knight with the axe however has different shields.

Greetings,
Christian

 

[maloyalo]

I have only seen 4 different shield decals (stickers) for the Britains Herald knights, and one of the pictures on that site shows all the 4 different decals. I am not sure what you mean by the knight with axe having a different shield ?

The seperate red cross added to the figures is interesting. After Timpo came out with awesome Crusaders and Medieval Knights, various other makers copied the design and 'look' of them, Hong Kong included. Not to get off track but I thought the Crusader very cool in the article very cool (and a Timpo style-copy). I hadn't seen one until recently. I think 7-8 of these crusader just sold on Ebay like last week. I didn't look real close, so am not positive, but they had the same, or very similiar and distinqtive shield decal.

Anyway, the various copiers, like Transogram (made in Hong Kong), Plasty, Cherilea, and other cheaper Hong kong versions all used lots seperate pieces to make up the figure, unlike Timpo which did it's pretty advanced multiple casting plastic over-lays.

So seperate crosses similiar to this were also being made in Hong Kong at the same time, as where the shield decals.

Quality

Some factories in Hong Kong did (and continue to) make high quality (to my mind 'very high quality') toy soldiers since the 60's. The market was flooded of course with much more cheaper stuff, so some may not realize it was not only that.

The Herald line began in England for instance, but moved to Hong Kong and was expanded there. The figures from the Hong Kong period are real wonders as far as perservation goes. In Hong Kong they went to PVC plastic and PVC based paint, and if not chewed by a dog, 40 years later still look like they just came out of the box. The knights where only made in Hong Kong and some of those poses are classics.

Transogram also made good quality Timpo style figures in Hong Kong. One of the real tests of quality plastic over time is how much the different color plastics bleed into each other. And the poses are no more goofy then Timpo's. I have never heard a definative answer, on some style-copies of Romans that came out of HK at the time, but they are great and can stand with the originals. The sepearte helmets are very well done and tolerances all around are tight.

Quality is also very much in the eye of the beholder! I think the Britains originals a bit better then the kinder copies, except for the waist swivel. The Kinder versions have a bit sloppier paint and it is too shiny a silver for me. The Original Britains figures had a slightly muted color armor that just seems a bit more realistic. Now on later paint versions it at first deteriorated to about equal to the kinder ones, and even below, before climbing back up in the 90's to more paint colors and better care, some of which is due to moving the manufacture to good old Hong Kong.

I like Plasty Crusaders and Knights a lot too. Only have some figures, but a box shows some accessories, like a catapult, maybe a tent ? Would love to see a pic of those if you know of any.

The rare Kinder egg figure prices are insane! I am not sure if people here understand we are talking $700-1000 each for some of these guys. Talk about the goose laying the golden egg.

 

[fisch-cio]

Hi thank you for all that information.
I attached a photo of one of my knights, so that you can see what I mean with "other shield" (decal).
I don't know it there are futher different decals.

 

[fisch-cio]

Hey guys,
to keeps this thread going i drew a few conlusions on which I would like to know your oppinions.

Ferrero also had Egyptians and Soldiers that were also packed in little bags like these knights. This suggests that they've been made by the same company if not by Ferrero.
Maybe they are copies of some other figures too. Any guesses?

http://eierwiki.de/images/c/c8/SoldatOVP.JPG
http://ueeidieter.de/replika/soldaten/soldaten1.jpg
(source: originally from faelschungszentrale.de and ueeidieter.de)

http://ueeidieter.de/replika/aegypter/aegypter4.jpg
(source: ueeidieter.de)

There have also been Idians that match the style of the knights. I try to find pictures.

Greetings from Germany,
Christian