toyboxdx toy blog brog: is graceful art of daily expressing japanese toy  

From time to time I have to post
a photo of Ark’s masterpiece.

バルタン星人

Ark King Kong aka Mech-Gorilla

Japan. 1976. Ark Kaiju reign. Per Prof Robert Duban:

“Mecha Baltan” was kind of an odd choice for the name of this toy, as it’s the most accurately non-mechanical portrayal of the bunch. It also looks nothing like the actual “Mecha-Baltan” that appeared in later episodes of the Ultraman series. Whatever. In any event, although it’s a relatively common piece in the ‘States, it’s highly sought after in Japan.”

Return of the lost Ark…raiders of the lost Ark…aaaa forget it…I thought
I make another Brog about the european Ark toys. Maybe interesting
for a few Ark-nerds.

I know of 2 different packaging types here in europe.
In germany a company called Bienengräber & Co. from Hamburg distributed the Ark toys.
They printed their own “german boxes” and translated manuals etc.
Bienengräber & Co. was a bit the Marukai Trading Co. of germany. They also sold Bandai toys,
Takara Piocchio Magnemo, Nintendo “game & Watch” and other japanese stuff.
But their biggest hit was Monchhichi…little brown hairy suckers ;-)

left “german” box, right “belgium” box

There are also bilingual (french/dutch) boxes & manuals for the Ark toys.
These boxes are made for belgium. I don’t have a clue if they had been imported to france too.
I could swear that Bienengräber & Co distributed & produced the “belgium” boxes too, because strangely “Metallguss” (diecast) is written in german on them too. But my “theory” isn’t approved.

top “belgium” box, below “german” box

bilingual back of “belgium” box

back of “german” box

Did anyone know if there are italian versions of the box?
I never seen one before.

If you have other “theories” please LMK in the BBS

Toy cleaning day.
Pulled the Ark gang out of the display, because the guys had been a bit dusty.
Good chance to shot some pics.

Really like these guys. Maybe because I had a Red King as a kid in germany.
My Red King was my “Metalguss Weltraumroboter” (cast metal space robot),
because that was written on the german box. Didn’t realize Ark as a brand name as a kid.
Red King had a tough job, he had to fight against hundreds of Airfix mini soldiers all day.

But not Red King killed my Airfix Toy soldiers.
My mon did that with the vacuum cleaner ;-)

BBS

Aged to perfection

A special thanks to Prof. Duban for this shot of Ark toy porn. Ooh la la…

Sunday Macrobrog. Ark Kong