Lone Star Western Die-Cast Figures?

[Brazoo]

Hi Guys,

I'm hoping someone can help me identify these little die-cast western toys. I've had them since I was a kid, but I don't know anything about them and I haven't had any luck looking online.

The only identifying marks say: "Lone Star" and "Made In England"

Each figure is of a legendary western character, like Jesse James and Crazy Horse.

Any clues?

[Brazoo]

Bump - anyone?

[Big Jim of Georgia]

I am no expert on these items but I do think they are cool. I occasionally see a collector/dealer that trades these types of items. The figures he trades were made by two companies. One called Britian. I dont recall what the other manufacturers name was. The figures in his collection are painted, some with loss through the years. I dont recall any with no paint at all. There were animals soldiers wagons and various other items made by these companies. I want to say they were produced 1930s through 1940s, maybe even older.

[alex]

I wouldnt be suprised, because they did come with metal figures were the "kinder surprise eggs". I used to go in, and pick them out, because they always used to weigh a bit more That running shooting cowboy, seems very familiar.

I think I found them, go down nearly to the bottom, and U will have two separate sections cowboys and indians

http://www.raumhafen.de/galerie/meta...se/frames.html

[Godzilla]

I LOVED those as a kid!

[Brazoo]

I wouldnt be suprised, because they did come with metal figures were the "kinder surprise eggs". I used to go in, and pick them out, because they always used to weigh a bit more That running shooting cowboy, seems very familiar.

I think I found them, go down nearly to the bottom, and U will have two separate sections cowboys and indians

http://www.raumhafen.de/galerie/meta...se/frames.html

Wow! This is them for sure!

When you first said they were Kinder Surprise toys I thought you must be wrong because they're pretty big compared to any Kinder Surprises I ever got - and I use to collect Kinder Surprise toys. Maybe the eggs use to be a lot bigger though.

Also, I sort of remember them coming in some kind of package - but I got these so long ago it's impossible for me to say for sure.

And these pics are the same for sure! Thank you so much!

[Brazoo]

Now I think I found closer shots of the Kinder Toys and I'm not sure. The bases look different and they look less detailed. Maybe they reused the sculpts and shrunk them? It would make more sense size-wise.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I dunno if they're Kinder figures. They look kinda big, and detailed.... but they look REALLY similar. So yeah, maybe they did shrink them down? I don't think Kinder had any factories in England.

Weird.

Don C.

[Brazoo]

Another slight difference - you can see on mine that each figure has a little rock with his name on it - and the Kinders in these pics don't have that.

[Brazoo]

They're all around 3 1/2" to 3 1/4" tall to give you guys some sense of size. Maybe later I'll post a couple more detailed shots with something in there for scale.

[Superdan]

Vintage Lone Star Metallions Billy the Kid Pat Garratt - eBay (item 390272133028 end time May-14-11 04:22:05 PDT)

Dan

[babycyclops]

^That looks like them alright.
Nice collection Brazoo! I've got a couple of those figures myself, including Crazy Horse. In toy soldier speak, these figures are 54mm, which is 1/32 scale.

[Brazoo]

YES! Thank you Superdan!

Alex got me on the right track - I ended up contacting Veselin Bedelev from Bulgaria who runs this amazing site: Veselin Bedelev - Kinder Surprise Collection

He's a really great guy, and he gave me TONS of info:

"The origin of the figures were in late 50's, (but approx. 85-90 mm in size and made of plastic) from a company called Louis Marx. They used to produced many Indian and Cowboy figures.

These metal figures were made by Lone Star and distributed by a company named Hubley, and so they are also known as Hubley Miniatures (approx. 70 mm in size).

In the late 70's some of them (4 Indians and 4 cowboys) were resized to 40 mm and later distributed in eggs by Ferrero (brand name Kinder Surprise).

During the 80's the same figures were remade and distributed by a Hong Kong company.

Another interesting piece of info about Louis Marx is that the company was sold to the Russians in the 70's and same plastic figures were sold in Russia, but later the Russian company stopped making them as the figures were treated like western propaganda."

[Brazoo]

^That looks like them alright.
Nice collection Brazoo! I've got a couple of those figures myself, including Crazy Horse. In toy soldier speak, these figures are 54mm, which is 1/32 scale.

Thanks! Three of mine have some fragile pieces broken off of them. Billy The Kid, Kit Carson and Red Cloud are all missing weapons, so now that I know what they are I can try to track down replacements.

Thanks again all!

[babycyclops]

Thanks for that link! Mr Bedelev's site is indeed great, I've not visited it before, and have noticed some bits and pieces in my stash that I couldn't identify until now. I'm no Marx expert, but I'm not sure if the original figures were from Marx. I've had a look through a couple of sites, including this one, without spotting them.

http://www.marxwildwest.com/inventory1.html#Top

There are some really inventive and funny figure poses documented on the above site