Vintage Mego: Bionic Man from Peru

[RSS]

This week we talk about the contributions of BASA, a company in Peru that not only made their own versions of the Mego World’s Greatest Superheroes but also made this 8 inch Steve Austin figure, a completely unique item to their country. More on BASA at the MegoMuseum www.megomuseum.com Facebook Group MegoMania: https://www.facebook.com/groups/megomania/ Twitter:…

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[Wee67]

As exciting as this discovery was, I think even more exciting was the affirmation that there is still more to discover in the Mego world. It makes me wonder about other Latin American countries that had importation substitution acts (the fancy term for this practice I learned from my way-smarter wife). Or maybe Soviet Bloc nations with better economies (I'm looking at you Czech Republic portion of the former Czechoslovakia) that could have churned out their own versions like they did with so many other capitalist products from the West. I did once see toy soldiers in a very dark and dusty "antique" shop in Budapest but they were 12" blow molds. Maybe they were Soviet Solnechnaya Sem'ya (way-smarter wife giving her best guess at Sunshine Family in Russian).

[Mego-Amigo]

When we were in Peru last year visiting my wife's family we hit every vintage toy shop we could find searching for one of these. We found two dealers that knew what we were talking about but had not had one to sell for years.

[TheMegoGuy]

I just added this one to my collection last week. It's a great head sculpt!

[J.B.]

I just added this one to my collection last week. It's a great head sculpt!

That's about as minty as they come. He does have a nice head sculpt. He would display nicely next to Tomland's Sonic Man.

[TrekStar]

That is so crazy cool, what a great find and nice job having one in your collection.

[Godzilla]

You are killing it with this series Brian. Bravo!

[palitoy]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

[Confessional]

South American countries still hold many licensed and bootleg plastic mysteries! It would be ultra cool for some toy documentaries to emerge tracing these production stories.

Anything special/of note about the Basa body?

[glimpy]

You must be talking about Willy. And Mario. We bought them out years ago. There ain't Jack left.

[Goblin19]

I also searched Peru when I visited years ago with my wife. We even went to an entire mall in Lima that had nothing but toy stores in it. I found nothing. They seemed to be much more focused on ‘80’s toys. I was really hopeful that I would find something.