Wednesday 16 May 2012

St. Cyr Cadets by Britains???????

You never know what will turn up at the Plastic Warrior Show, a curious item that caught my attention was this Britains "Eyes Right" series box of French St. Cyr Cadets.
The wording and style of print have been lifted from original Britains packaging but the box colour and the way it opens by lifting the cellophane fronted lid are all wrong.

Inside the box there is a printed insert which looks to be a French Chateau, the figures look to me to be copies of Starlux and they are held in place by wings cut into the insert.  The figures are a good 60mm high and made in hard plastic, painted to a good standard.

Underneath the box the wording is once again copied from original Britains packaging.

So what is it - a rare Britains set made in France or a fake made to catch the unsuspecting collector?
The answer is neither it was made in Poland, and the quality looks very good, I think any serious Britains or Starlux collector (which I am not) should include something like this in their collection for a bit of fun.

4 comments:

  1. I think that any avid collector would smell a rat at the nub of sprue on the base. They must have been pretty desperate to pump these out to leave that on.Also, I don`t think that Britains would have had a variation in facial colour.

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  2. Hello Brian,
    May I publish this on the forum please?
    regards.

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  3. Geminian, good points well made. I think this is the only example I have seen of Polish figures in a box, it makes me wonder if they often copied branded packaging.

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  4. Hello Mathias, Yes of course you are very welcome to publish this on the forum, here is the link for anyone who does not know it.

    http://soldatplastique-1-32.forumgratuit.org/forum

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