8 replies to this topic

[Bruz40]

What's up everyone? My first post here. I'm 33 now but when I was a kid I LOVED collecting little rubber guys of all sorts. Pics of part of my collection are below, some of which I need help identifying. I've been going through all my old stuff, selling a lot of it on eBay for extra money. A couple weeks ago I sold a lot of approx 25 Battle Beasts, most of them with their rubs & weapons. I did however keep my favorites, for my boy to play with when he's a little older (he's 2 now). I had 3 boxes stuffed with little rubber guys, little plastic guys, little plastic animals/dinos/monsters, little rubber animals/dinos/monsters, etc... I sorted through them all last night. I can't bring myself to sell most of this (but am considering selling certain things), and wanted to share my collection with you and see if you guys had any info on some of these.

First, most people's favorite LRG, my MUSCLEs... the dark blue guy towards the bottom middle who looks like part caveman & part gorilla was always my favorite:


I have 2 more MUSCLEs here (at the bottom). Also pictured are some Remco AWA figures (2nd row up) and then the top 3 rows are all bootleg/imitation MUSCLE figures. Curious but not looking to sell - do these bootleg MUSCLEs have any value?


Here are some more generic wrestler-type LRGs. They're all slightly bigger than a MUSCLE figure, of which I included one in the pic for size comparision. Any info on any of these little rubber wrestlers would be appreciated.


I'd love some info on any of these... my parents used to sell antiques at a flea market in NYC on Sundays for most of my childhood (through college). I have memories of my dad taking me to a couple stores within walking distance and they'd have little bins near the registers filled with little rubber monsters. The bottom row are rubber - but also magnetic! These all are close to MUSCLE size, most being a little smaller though.


Here's some good ones... bottom row are the GPK figures, 2nd row as some MOTU figures, a mini GI Joe figure, and an even "minier" Star Wars figure. Top row is Weird Balls figures. Flat purple guy is a Rice Krispies elf. I've seen the GPK figures go for decent money on eBay and have been very tempted to list them on there individually, but I don't know if I can. I LOVED GPK as a kid - and while I recently also sold all my "doubles" on eBay, I still have my nearly complete set of series 1-15. I'm only missing cards from series 14 & 15 but will one day fill in the gaps... and then probably wind up collecting the base cards for the All New Series lol... Anyway, do the MOTU, GI Joe, Star Wars, or Weird Balls figures have any value?


A bunch of random rubber monsters & aliens. I remember getting a lot of the rubber aliens (top 2 rows) at the planetarium gift shop at the Museum of Natural History (again, on Sundays in NYC). The 2 rows below them are assorted mythological (mostly anyway) monsters... while some look alike, they may be either hard or soft rubber. The bottom row are 3 random rubber monsters unrelated to the rest. These are all a little bigger than MUSCLEs.


D&D type monsters. I also have these monsters (same size & molds from what I can tell) but in plastic.


Random robots... the cluster on the far right are, I think, erasers I bought from my school store back in elementary school. Soft rubber. My favorite in this pic is the red broad shoulder robot in the middle. I could swear I had more similar to him. Any info on any of these would be appreciated as well.

Edited by Bruz40, 04 February 2012 - 12:13 PM.

[TheRiddler]

The bottom row are MUSCLEMANIA by Select 1984...little wrestler guy looks like a SOMA figure



1st row 1s guy is MUSCLEMANA...after that 1st and 2nd rows are Diener Space Creatures
rows 3 and 4 are Diener also Mythology creatures

[Jackson]

In the 1st picture what you have is a nice lot of flesh muscle figs and a few assorted color. The lighter purple figs actually are part of the board game release.


In the 2nd picture all but row 4 appear to be different bootleg M.U.S.C.L.E., a couple of Cosmix/Exogini and some really sweet amalgam gum ball machine figures. I would be especially interested in the Buffalo/Ashuraman ( the horned guy with 6 arms )

In the 4th picture, most of these appear to be japanese Godzilla keshi figures, Others on here may have some more specific info on them.

In the 5th picture, the GPK cheap toys all appear to be base color common figures. The weird ball wrestlers go for a dollar or two a piece usually. The MOTU gum ball figures may hold some interest to the right collector. I know of a light blue set of those gumball figs that went for a decent price

Edited by ILMWIWY80, 04 February 2012 - 01:01 PM.

[BaltanII]

1. You know what these are obviously, but that's a pretty neat lot you have! One of my brother's favorites was that same ogre-looking sculpt.

2. The "hybrid" bootlegs have some value, especially the six-armed Buffaloman. I think you'd also find some demand for the metallic figures and the lightbulb - the lightbulb and disguised fellow having extra appeal in being non-MUSCLE sculpts.

3. I don't know anything specific about these, but if the top flesh figures aren't Remco Mini Mashers, they're part of a very similar generic-looking bootleg set mentioned and seen here a couple times. The painted figure is a Soma wrestler. The bottom row are Musclemania, an interesting release in their own right and with some real demand.

4. I would have to pore over this picture with better close-ups to identify everything, but you have a metric ton of kaiju here! The majority of sculpts are from Ultraman, and of those, most of the single-color rubber figures in the middle rows are from Canfull of Monsters and/or Monster Toss, the only official way the figures were released domestically. There's at least one Godzilla keshi made by Popy in the upper left, as well as a... Parasaurolophus? I dunno, maybe Popy made dinosaur keshi too. Of the other figures, they're Japanese releases, bootlegs, or some mix of the two. The black keshi with metallic paint are almost certainly boots, and they still get sold on eBay to this day as far as I'm aware. The five robots in the second row, and the blue alien and purple robot in the first, are not Godzilla or Ultraman at all and I have no idea what they are.

5. Weird Ball Wrestlers have some demand for sure, and there should be some for the MOTU figures as well. I have no idea about the Joe minifigure, and your Star Wars figure is from Micro Machines, so there's probably demand of some kind, but hell if I know how much for a single random figure.

6. Aside from that top left figure and the bottom row, yep, all Diener erasers. They were well-known for offering multiple types of rubber. I'm not familiar with the bottom row's two left figures. Definitely look to be a similar style, and the middle figure reminds me of Anguirus from Godzilla. The figure on the right is your typical gumball machine parachute-style figure, hence the ring on his head.

7. Ahhh yes, the classic "cheapo China monsters that became monsters in D&D"! Those things are crazy.

8. I need a better picture to ID them exactly, but the robots on the left are all a random assortment of Japanese mecha... and one cyborg. That looks to be a Kamen Rider on the far left, and Gaiking and Grendizer on the right. The top robot and all of the bottom row are all from a common set of bootleg Japanese mecha (mostly Gundam) erasers. They've been made in a ton of assorted colors and plastic/eraser types over the years. The erasers on the right are more by Diener, perennial school eraser supplier. The middle figure is a bootleg of a L-Gaim keshi, and they appear infrequently but always stand out due to their distinctive shape.

[transformersontheshelf]

so many awesome kaiju minis! I hope later this year to start collecting kaiju stuff again. awesome collection btw.

[Bruz40]

Thanks for all the replies guys - since posting this, I've been browsing this forum some more, as well as the Minifigures XD toy blog, and I have some stupid newbie questions...

1) Kinnikuman vs Ultimate MUSCLE mini figures. Are they one in the same, or 2 different series with different figures? Approx how many figures are there (of each sculpt, not color variations)? Are there flesh tone versions of all of them?

2) Can someone please explain all the "K words" that I see thrown around on here - I see some of them used interchangably and for what seem to be completely different things:
- Kinkeshi
- Kinkishi
- Keshi
- Kaiju

Thinking about how possibly completing a flesh tone set of MUSCLE... also have my eye on flesh tone OMFG & ZOMBIE figure sets... no doubt if I started collecting these sorts of things it would snowball. Although I'm certain I would not try to collect sets of different colors - just different characters.

[Ericnilla]

1. kinnikuman (early 80's) are the japanese muscles. 418 in the series (236 in the US series) released in 30 parts and at least 5 standard colors and a few premium colors for some. flesh is the standard color in every series. ultimate muscle is the second generation of kinnikuman (2000's), not sure how many in the series, but released in 12 parts.

2. keshi is the japanese word for rubber, shortened from keshi gomu which is gum rubber or eraser rubber.
kinkeshi is short for kinnikuman keshi or rubber kinnikuman figures
kinkishi is a misspelling of kinkeshi.
kaiju is the japanese word for monster.

[jdredd]

Hello, your broad shouldered red robot in the middle of this pic is from a Japanese anime called Heavy Metal L-Gaim, character name is Auge. On the bottom are four robots from the Gundam series if Im not mistaken. The tall thin one on the left is Zgok the three on the right next to him are all called Zock. I've got some of these robots myself and I'm looking to obtain more, but its not easy. They keep slipping through my fingers.

Attached Files

•  rubber8.jpg   75.25K   2 downloads

Edited by jdredd, 16 November 2016 - 06:17 PM.

[dixiebull]

Wow great stuff here...too bad it is from 2012. I'm sure this guy is long gone.

Edited by dixiebull, 04 November 2016 - 02:00 PM.