Plasticos Garcia - Toy Soldiers

These guys are neither the right scale nor the right time period, but when I saw them I could not resist buying them, hence they have ended up on this blog. Plasticos Garcia was a Mexican manufacturer of 60-70mm plastic toy soldiers. O'Briens Collecting Foreign-Made Toy Soldiers only has a brief reference to them, so I don't know much about the history behind them, but from what I can gather, they produced the bulk of their figures in the 70's-80's. The figures seem to represent Mexican soldiers, as the standard bearers usually carried a Mexican flag. We know however, that Mexico did not contribute any infantry units during WWII, so maybe they represent the peace time army in between wars. In any case, the army figures are generic enough that you could make them pass for figures of other nationalities. Most of the poses are in parade style, and some of them are cavalry units. In addition to the army figures, they also produced sailors and cadets from the Mexican military academy. The figures came factory painted and as you can see, some of them hold their color relatively well to this day. A knowledgeable reader has pointed out that the marching soldiers seem to be copies of Elastolin figures -with some modifications, such as the helmets, and the cavalry figures seem to be clones of Lineol figures.

Plasticos Garcia Mexican Infantry

In addition to the parade guys, there seem to be a couple of combat poses. An interesting fact is that the two combat poses come with detachable heads. Their footwear also seems different. 

Plasticos Garcia Mexican Cavalry

These cavalry men are wearing helmets that look a bit German. Seems like they could be painted and added to a column of horse drawn artillery. As you can see, the horses come in a couple different colors.

Plasticos Garcia Mexican Cadets

A more elegant looking troop. I believe that these guys also had drummers and buglers in their ranks. The flag is missing the eagle though, so I guess they could be mistaken for Italians.