![]() ![]() GIANT Plastics Corp was started by a Herb Rosenberg and his brother back in 1960, in New York, NY. The first figures of this type were made by GIANT Plastics Corp., the grand-daddy of HO figure piracies. I won't look at the various copies of this same set of poses other than to mention if there are such things as later copies. So for ease of identification, I will examine the 'first' example of a certain set of poses and refer to them as 'Pose Selection. The detail and quality of these copies run the gamut from good to horrible. ![]() Some are direct copies of the 'original' figures, some loosely 'inspired'. Then there are usually a myriad of piracies of those piracies. Usually, there was the first set of figures containing a specific pose selection. There are far too many sources of these figures to break down into each set made. But their existence expands the available poses for the 'Wild West' and mix well with their contemporary 1/72 Cowboys and Indians available from Airfix, Atlantic and Revell. Today, such piracy would not be so easily tolerated. Obviously, they are a product of their times. Over the twenty-odd years these were mostly available, nearly every combination of Swoppet was copied. Swoppets had interchangeable pieces, such as separate heads, torsos, legs etc., so the 'designers' of the Five and Dime figures merely assembled different combinations of figures to make their 'masters'. Most of the figures owe their existence to Britain’s Swoppet Cowboys and Indians. The larger figure merely took the place of some sculptor’s master figure. ![]() The Five and Dime makers had to at least pantograph the figures down to HO or 1/72 scale. That is what sets them apart from firms like Baravelli or BUM's early sets, which were usually direct copies of same sized Airfix figures. They were also almost always a scaled down copy of other manufacturers 54mm figures. ![]() Most of them were made in Hong Kong, usually made in bright primary colored plastic, often paired with a snap together fort and some wagons or teepees. Five and Dime Cowboys and Indians are what I define as those little HO Cowboys and Indians that came in carded sets or header bags that you used to buy at Woolworth’s, Duckwalls, the local supermarket, the corner drugstore, giftshops in local 'tourist trap' attractions and museums, or any of the 'Five and Dime' stores in most towns and cities of the 1950s through 1970s, and sometimes beyond. ![]()
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