geoffreypeeters Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 What ANZinspace is saying in point nº2 is maybe the truth... I came up with these this week here in Portugal: Yep... 2 rifles that are definitely Pyro rifles lookalikes, but probably made here. (3 vents instead of 5 on the front of the guns - cheap plastic - no "Pyro..." markings (or any other for that matter) - plain crank - extensive old glue marks...). The size seems correct though, at about 19 inches from barrel to stock. As you know, Pyro has sent their molds to other countries. Moldex, Kleeware, Lesieur and Tudor Rose all shared some of Pyro's molds - and made amazing toys in amazing colours out of them for markets like the U.K. or Australia (some of them even with slight variations, like for the French X-400 spaceship). It therefore does not sound off to me to have some differences for the Pyro pistol either. The tooling has travelled. I have seen a Pyro plastic micro-racer car here with different colour scheme and translucid wheels "fabricado em Portugal". So there was definitely an U.S.-U.K.-France-Australia-Portuguese connection. I am trying to figure out which of the Portuguese toy-company could have made these. Anyone who can share info with these ? Geoff's toys - http://geoffstoys.blogspot.pt/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian.. Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 Great work, Geoffrey. Informative and entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffreypeeters Posted November 23, 2013 Author Share Posted November 23, 2013 All I know about the Ametralladora Espacial is that it's from Argentina. There are signs of some of that classic early space artwork. (I didn't notice that different versions have a number of vents before. This one has the four vents of the Pyro original.) Brian, I found other color variations of the Portuguese version ! It seems they have been made in lots of other colors... same 3 vents, glue marks on the plastic, monochrome barrel and ... no markings. The gold coloured Argentinian version is pretty cool, though ! Especially the box ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 Great collection! Congrats! I saw a couple of them on ebay, it seems they are not so rare in Portugal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffreypeeters Posted November 24, 2013 Author Share Posted November 24, 2013 Great collection! Congrats! I saw a couple of them on ebay, it seems they are not so rare in Portugal. They are rare even here Alessandro. I have lived in Portugal for over 10 years now, attended most toy-shows and flea markets over here and I just discovered these this year. The truth is that my interest in them suddenly "woke up" a lot of other collectors who did not have any idea of what they had in their hands (this is how I got the rifles seen above). Even the big toy museum here in Sintra, with the largest collection of Portuguese plastic toys, does not have any example. Most Portuguese collectors tend to give all their attention to soldiers and cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 You put together a little treasure! Too bad that they did not produce the pistol too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffreypeeters Posted November 24, 2013 Author Share Posted November 24, 2013 You put together a little treasure! Too bad that they did not produce the pistol too. I don't know if they produced any pistol or not. I have never seen one (yet). But I never saw these rifles before either... All I know is that there has been some swapping of plastic-injection molds between the US, the UK and Portugal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted November 25, 2013 Share Posted November 25, 2013 Other 4 rifles are on ebay: it's a big big mistake to throw on the market all of these rare guns at the same time. The prices will drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffreypeeters Posted November 25, 2013 Author Share Posted November 25, 2013 Other 4 rifles are on ebay: it's a big big mistake to throw on the market all of these rare guns at the same time. The prices will drop. These are not mine Alessandro. It seems they "vanished" at this point. http://geoffstoys.blogspot.pt/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Yes I know that they are not yours. But probably the seller reads this forum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Ha ha, the seller changed his strategy! Too late: prices have dropped by now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dratomic Posted December 1, 2013 Share Posted December 1, 2013 This is great stuff! Brian, is there any way to pull the Portuguese-related posts and turn them into their own, dedicated thread? The information that's been uncovered is really fantastic and deserves to stand on it's own (if only to make it easier to find). This thread is so cluttered at this point -- I actually wonder if it's worth creating a whole new Pyro-related thread with a clearer discussion of the fakes, the different versions, and the foreign variations. (With perhaps a link to a dedicated thread for the Portuguese versions.) Just an idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian.. Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Yes, Doc, it's time for a separate topic for this remarkable find of Portugese versions of the Pyrotomic Rifle. I guess the big question is how many of them are out there. Geoffrey has posted a group of seven or variations, and at least four more Portugese dealers have listed multiple examples on Ebay in the last few days. It's a tricky time to buy when the total out there is unknown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian.. Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 Hmmm...it seems that these guns are popular with zero feedback buyers. This recent auction bidding record makes for interesting study: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rt=nc&item=151181294387 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 Tons of these things are popping out on the Bay... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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