The "Less Than High Speed" 1/6th Military Product Archive

[MeatHookGekko]

Josef. Had one of the newer bodies, at least for it's time frame. What's interesting is that when a new body type emerges, the price points generally went up.

For a while, the DML Neo body type, early on, was considered the best widely commonly available body type for use. When the secondary market value of those bodies started to crater, that had a ripple impact on the loose parts market. Hence it made it harder for loose parts dealers to turn a profit, which caused some to exit the hobby.

I'm a big believer that most of the early brands should have never attempted to upgrade their body types. Not for a very long time. There was some controversy in the old days, that some WW2 DML figures were having massive QC problems. The common accusation was that DML was burning off it's "bad bodies" before the new type Neo came out.

I am thankful that I was never a long term DML WW2 collector. There was some kind of love/hate relationship with collectors, many of them. People mostly love the product, but the company itself had fan engagement like having Thanksgiving dinner with Logan Roy.

I, of course, always measured my first impression of any set with how many guns the guy had. Two guns. That's great. Four guns would have been better IMHO. I'm just like that about 1/6th armament I suppose.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

The RF-8 holds the distinction of being one of the few upscale releases from DML WW2 that genuinely garnered real interest from the vintage community.

Much of vintage was built around the "Adventure Team" concept. Don't care who you are and what you collect, this thing was pretty damn cool. You could see the fun factor beyond even WW2. The heavy support of WW2 by DML and it's desire to keep making cash, meant that a lot of more arcane stuff eventually did get produced. I think that's a great thing for the hobby, any hobby. I'd love to have that in my collection even today, and I'm not a WW2 Red Army collector at all.

I wouldn't call this "low speed" as much as there was, at one point, a concerted effort to consider smaller vehicles and smaller diorama items to interest collectors. You can find fun and cool stuff across all lines, brands and genres. Just have to be willing to look IMHO.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

And speaking of vintage, probably a good time to show a talking vintage Joe. When you compare this to a modern True Type, now you see how much our hobby has come in terms of product innovation and development.

Look at the limitations of the joints, hands and what should be glaring potential break points. I have a few vintage items, but I am not well versed in vintage. I cannot make distinctions from original era and later reproduction product. But you can see more figures were built around a generic theme. The average soldier or pilot. And the average sailor or Marine. Without any of this, we wouldn't have what we have today.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Last one for today.

Fun stuff. Look, it's Lori Lightfoot. No, I'm kidding....

The only thing I can ascertain is that is a BBI G1 neckpost. So it's feasible for 1/6th application.

Look at how the tongue flares out from the left corner of it's mouth. That's pretty gangster actually.

Some people here might have Tinder. Could be interesting to change your profile picture with this and see what happens. Just saying.

 

[Jimmy C]

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I picked up this set loose complete many years ago. Well, without the full nude ( probably to save shipping weight). I'm not typically a fan of this era, but it was included as part of a larger package deal of loose sets. I thought it was fantastic. I'm sure I still have that rifle somewhere, as it's just a really fantastic piece. I wish I could give more detail on the back history of this figure, but it's a bit out of my depth. Maybe someone else had it and is more familiar with this line and theme. I will say despite being a 2006 release, it's a really fantastic figure IMHO and many DID sets have aged very well in our hobby.

IIRC, I didn't get the whole nude, but I did get the headsculpt. So for "Dick", I still got his head. So I got Dick's h..... never mind. It made me laugh though.

Wasn’t this suppose to be a character from a BBC / PBS tv series ? Maybe Sean Bean

 

[Jimmy C]

I’ve got these. I can’t seem to find any reference to them on internet nor ebay auctions or sales. Does that make them “rare” and “valuable” or “undesirable“ ?

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Wasn’t this suppose to be a character from a BBC / PBS tv series ? Maybe Sean Bean

Jimmy, thanks for contributing to the thread. You are right, it might be Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe. Much of the gear looks similar.

Goodness gracious does Bean look young here. Great catch.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

I’ve got these. I can’t seem to find any reference to them on internet nor ebay auctions or sales. Does that make them “rare” and “valuable” or “undesirable“ ?

DML got the license for the David Ayer SWAT film that aired back in 2003. I remember they were a limited run. I don't think they are undesirable, it's just a lot of their gear is outdated. Also they aren't robust with accessories like most current figures. The film license isn't iconic and none of the main actors are dead yet ( not to be morbid, but that changes the dynamic of interest somewhat)

If you have an African American figure/body type, then in general, there's always a market for that. No one else made an LL Cool J head AFAIK. And not many Sam Jackson heads out there. If you decide to try to sell them, they will likely get you more money being parted out rather than loose complete with the loose boxes. Streets CAR15/M4 was a hugely popular loose item/weapon in the old days. That might be worth something above average. The shotgun and MP5 don't have a ton of secondary market value.

I doubt you will get great return if you tried to sell them with their boxes or as a jumbo boxed lot. The cost of shipping these days is too punitive for that size/extra weight IMHO for something that likely has a small level of current collector interest.

But I'd still try to sell them boxed first on your local Craigslist and see what happens before you tried anything else.

That's just my speculation though. Good luck. Also feel free to keep contributing to this thread with other pictures/memories, etc, etc.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

https://twistedplastic.com/printables/smokegrenades.pdf


One-Sixth Scale Printables



******

The first photo above is the Ultimate Soldier first generation baseball and smoke grenades. Not a ton of detail for the time. No labeling and no high detail in the grenades. So what did people do back then? Well they printed out labels and used white glue and glued on their own labels. Also a few people used a pin vise to dig out a little hole where the grenade spoon was ( like piercing an ear I suppose and for the record, I don't have pierced ears, not that I'm judging or anything, it's just one more thing to rip out of me during a fistfight at a Korean destination wedding, which is really just another long story for another time....) and then use little bits of wire to make their own grenade pins.

I added some links to Twisted Plastic where they still have some grenade labels and other printables up if anyone is interested. Keep in mind, in the old days, when printables emerged, they were furiously saved very quickly, then backups were made, because back then, well webhosting and photo hosting was very erratic. People would book mark things and sometimes they'd disappear in a few months. Not all the time, but enough where lots of hobbyists weren't casual about not saving interesting stuff like this on their hard drives in haste.

The above photo are of DML's grenades that came in just about all of their modern sets. "Lemon" grenades that were really appropriate for the Vietnam War era figures. Then DML released VN figures with modern baseball grenades. The "lemons" fit into the DML modern molded ammo pouches better. Because a lot of the figures were still using LC2 ammo pouches, with a grenade pouch on each side.

Here is an example of a then extremely common OD molded DML LC2 ammo pouch.

Hence TUS baseball grenades, for a while, were the most common actual modern grenade on the market. This was an oddity in the hobby for a good 6-7 years straight. Now you can find well made high detail modern baseball grenades, across many brands, for about a dollar each, and they are shelf warmers for the few dealers that have survived this long.

Back then, you just had to wait. Or you had one option or maybe two for a production grade item. For example, Sideshow's Army Of Darkness Ash was the only production grade 1/6th full length civilian double barrel shotgun in the entire hobby for a while.

A little "grenade history" here. Hehe. ( I also don't normally say "Hehe", but we can take that off the shelf from the whole earring thing for a second. I'm flexible like that )

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Speaking of an individual piece that was rare and huge PITA to find in any format was a M72 Law Rocket launcher. If you bought the Ultimate Soldier Stoner Vietnam boxed set, you would get two of them. One molded close. And one that had a removable cap, and could slide open, and the two individual sights could be lifted up and used. This set also came with a monkey. Which is damn awesome. Because it harkens back to the 4 inch RAH GI Joe days where you had eagles, alligators, boa constrictors, dogs, etc, etc as companion animals for some figures.

This figures headsculpt might be modeled after former TUS marketing rep, Rex Adams. I can't be sure. ( Someone can correct me here if they know, etc) But many TUS figures had heads/faces that were modeled after their employees.

At some point, 21st Century Toys laid off Rex Adams, and when the information became public, there was uproar in all the 1/6th communities at the time. All of them. It was the only time where it seemed everyone across the hobby agreed on something. Finally someone from 21st came forward and made some kind of statement. I met Rex once. Seemed like a good guy. Wherever he is now, I wish him well.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

So when TUS released a box set, they also released a carded set with the same core theme and most of the accessories. Except usually one or two pieces that were considered "chase" items. This was to encourage you to buy the 29.99 boxed set instead of the 14.99 carded uniform set.

In this case, the carded set was missing the two M72s. I'm not sure that was the best move here, I would have personally added in the molded one into the carded set. But then again, what do I know.... Look at that monkey's face, he's clearly saying, "I really need a mother ####ing rocket launcher right now! YOU WANT ME TO THROW SOME BANANAS AT THEM?1?"

There is also a picture of the TUS M72. If you look carefully on the back, you can see the "male / female " connectors that sealed the tube shut, but could be removed. For the time and place, an extendable tube launcher like this was pretty innovative.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

This is Soldiers Of The World 3rd generation. Their last hurrah before they disappeared. They did a lot of mold lifting from other brands ( The boots, canteens, ammo pouches are all DML lifts) The machete and sheath is a TUS lift. The CAR 15 is an Intoyz lift without the function.

And they gave everyone a working functional M72. In a carded set that had a MSRP for 9.99 ( God bless SOTW for that) But the caveat was this thing was HUGE. It was pretty out of scale. Not sure why, but my guess is the internal sections needed to be a little larger for the "function" to work. At least with their design. Instead of the removable "cap" that TUS used, this had a hinge and latch system instead.

This is a killer value set for 9.99. And IIRC, some places had it for 7.99

For a long time, if you wanted a LAW rocket launcher, well this was about it.

A photo of the SOTW M72 with the latch closed. Also that rocket would not stay inside, it would just slide out. Because it was way too thin for the actual size of the barrel of that thing. That being said, was very cool that SOTW actually included the rocket at all.

But even just comparing the TUS photo from above to this ( photos taken by the same person clearly), you can see the size difference.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Second to last one for today.

Fun stuff. It's Hasbro Star Wars Mace Windu. So this was released over 20 years ago. He's got a huge head. Huge. Look how huge. But the rest of his body looks so tiny in comparison. He looks angry, constipated and frustrated here. Kind of a Harrison Ford stock acting look if you ask me.

Remember Pulp Fiction? "Because of ... the metric system?" ...... "Look at the big brain on Brad!"

Maybe Sam Jackson / Mace was projecting here a little....

 

[MeatHookGekko]

You all knew this was coming as we are talking about huge heads.


"It has it's own weather system!"


"I bet he's crying himself to sleep tonight on his huge pillow!"

 

[MeatHookGekko]

And last one for today. More fun stuff.

This is either Easy & Simple or Mini Times. Not sure. But name tape.

Names look familiar?

Not sure on "Cheng" though. Not sure how that fits in with the rest.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

DML made a M1 carbine with a 30 round magazine and for a long time it was the only one in the entire market. It was in a Korean War set. Close to impossible to find loose. SOTW made one in their 3rd gen carded sets. And they even gave you four spare magazines. I got that rifle in a trade, the charging handle/bolt action actually works.

Was a cool fun piece. Whomever was curating the loadout for these last wave SOTW sets really knew what they were doing.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Same M1 Carbine, just for WW2 application instead. These uniforms were a bit oversized. Rudimentary to be honest, but SOTW knew the big selling point was the weapons and the gear and value.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Their M1 Garand also had a functioning bolt action and you could load the weapon with the 8 round stripper clip. Barrels were not ported on the weapons.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Mold lift of the DML M79 grenade launcher that came with modern Ranger Phil Gordon. Big surprise was the molded rucksack. Odd sized cards were usually "shortpacked" in the case. So odds are there were fewer of these sets than the others.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Better view of the ruck in a different set. Also had a cool Starlight scope for the M16A1 here.