Gang,
This has been a mystery to me for 25 years this year. My primary goal is to identify the toys - but if we can't, I'm happy to at least get more toys from the bunch (which I know at least one Little Rubber Guys member has!). Can we do this? Not a week has gone by in 25 years where I've not wondered who these LRGs are.
In the mid-1990s, a Chinese company called Hinstar made spaceship playsets. Think Mighty Max, but war-ry spaceships, with little robots who could sit (stand) in seats, or ride little elevators, etc. I've included a picture of one such playset here. There were at least three spaceships in this set. The second picture shows the complete assortment of robots. They came in bronze, silver and gold.
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(Hinstar also recoloured the spaceships and put tiny Power Rangers-ish figures in them, and called them "Power Riders", I think. They also re-released the same spaceship in that photo but with tiny human figures.)
I have all of those spaceship sets, and the tiny robots. Unfortunately, they're packed away where I don't have any access to them, so can't take them out to show folks. (I did, however, just learn there was also a space station in the set!) These are not what I'm after.
A couple of years before those spaceship sets were released, I found a little green rubber robot in the school playground. This was 1993, and I believe the playsets came out in 1995. When I got the playsets in 1995, I immediately noticed that a micro-version of him was in the set. In both pictures, I've enclosed him in a red square.
The only difference I can see or recall is that the larger version has a 13 on the front of his left shoulder, which the smaller version lacks. The bigger, green version is about the size of a Micromaster Transformer in robot mode. The tiny figures are made of a very hard, inflexible plastic; the big green guy is made of a much softer, flexible rubber/plastic. The bigger guy has no year or company marked on him anywhere.
Years ago, I saw a purple version of that same figure in a post here on Little Rubber Guys. I contacted the owner to buy him, but apparently had just missed out - someone else from LRG had already nabbed him. So I know they come in at least green and dark purple.
A couple of years ago, I noticed another bigger, green version of one of the tiny robots here on LRG and successfully bought it. That one is surrounded by a yellow square in both pictures. Where the other figure was differentiated by the number 13 on his shoulder, this one's slight difference is in the head - the micro version has a bigger, more detailed one - but they are still clearly, basically the same figure.
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My suspicion is that the playset editions of the figures are downsized knockoffs of larger figures. I suspect the green (or purple!) ones may also be bootlegs of something else, but I believe they predate the smaller, hard plastic figures.
I would like to know where the moulds may have originated. As I suspect they're knockoffs, it is possible that the moulds are of different figures from multiple different toylines.
If anyone has any of the figures in the larger size, I definitely would be interested in buying them. (Yes, whoever got the purple one - I still want it!) But the primary objective is to learn what they are and where they originated.
You're all smart folks - I'm sure one of you will be able to bring my 25 year quest to an end!