Early PBP (“Poch”) Mosaics

I simply love PBP figures, and especially the "early PBP" figures, which are often referred to as  “Poch”. There is never a dull moment when collecting and researching Poch figures. One of the reasons is that these figures are composed from parts which were sourced from factories in the Far East that were producing the Kenner figures. The unpainted parts were imported to Spain, and subsequently painted and welded into complete figures on behalf of PBP. These are the Class I figures.
The unique paint applications, make those figures distinct from their Kenner counterparts. The sonic welding process was not that optimal, sometimes giving rise to factory defects like melt marks (dissipation of sonic energy at the wrong spot causing the plastic to melt locally?) and visible cracks along the two torso halves. Sometimes the figures even appear to be hardly welded at all See the poor Ugnaught below for example.


Class I figures are often (not always!) mosaics composed from parts which originate from two different steel moulds. This makes sense if you imagine that batches of parts originating from two different factories got mixed up at a certain stage during production in Spain. Sometimes it is obvious that one figure is made from parts originating from two steel moulds (~factories), For instance when a figure has two date stamps or two country designations. See the Dengar example below.

Very often the differences are more subtle especially when it involves mixing up of arms, and legs, which makes it a challenging task to trace back the mould origins.
For the record: Class I figures can also be "pure" non mosaic if all parts originate from one steel mould (~ factory).




To make things even more complicated (and interesting), PBP also started to import painted parts from the Far East after a certain time. These parts were then welded together with their own painted parts: Class II figures.
For Class II figures the mosaic nature is often very clear. Take for instance the Poch Luke Farmboy with brown head. In this figure the legs (with typical greenish brown paint), arms (with pale painted hands), and torso (with pale painted neck) are all parts which were imported and then painted by PBP. The brown hair head is imported though, and can also be seen on Kenner figures, including the slight mould defect (not a meltmark!) on the side.
A more subtle example is the blond Luke Farmboy figure below, having one PBP painted leg (greenish brown) and one Kenner leg (light brown).







Probably there is a fourth type of mosaic in which remanining parts from the early PBP era were combined with parts which were plastic injected by PBP in Spain at a later stage (for the no COO figure line).
I have a few in my collection. More about that another time.

You can read more about these fascinating figures in the PBP thread on TIG here. This thread is planned to be updated here on TXI (as a Library article). If you guys like to read such an article, I will be happily start working on it.

Marco

Very clear summary Marco. I don't currently have many Spanish figures, but I do enjoy learning about them and their maunfacturing history.

I'll look forward to watching this fascinating topic grow.

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Pardon me for asking, but I still don't catch the meaning of the word "Mosaic" that you have used here.

Hi Peter,

A mosaic is a piece of artwork composed of small pieces of coloured stone or glass.
The analogy with Poch figures is that these are pieces of pop art which are often composed of parts from different mould families (produced in different factories).

I hope that clears it up.

Thanks Marco,

Pretty complex approach by POCH Sounds like a "Frankenstein Monster" made from different body parts!

Marco, Nicely written article.

I only have a couple of Spanish figures, and with the ever rising prices of them at the moment, and how cheap I am, that's probably all I'll have.

Absolutely Peter. It seems like a complex approach.

This is just guessing but I can imagine that for the 37/41 backs PBP adopted this medium risk approach of importing figure parts from the Far East and having these painted and welded in Spanish factories.
First PBP needed to know if the SW figure line would be a success in Spain before spending more resources on plastic injection in Spain (outsourcing to specialized company, importing heavy steel moulds, etc.).

At first instance PBP even had a lower risk strategy of just importing complete Kenner figures and putting them on the first Imperio 31 backs. A straightforward approach to test the market without having to invest in the production of figures?

Again just thinking out loudly here. Hopefully Javi's upcoming book will shed some more light on this.

Whatever might be the reason for importing and mixing parts from different factories, it makes collecting Poch figures all but boring.

great explanation and figures .... I am all but obsessed with these amazing figures whether it be pure poch or hybrid frankenstein variants (along with latter pbp), cant wait to see more

Thanks Bill!

What I find interesting is that even 'pure Poch' figures (Class I) can be composed of parts from different factories. Their mosaic / hybrid / Frankenstein nature is less pronounced and often unnoticed though when compared to their Class II brothers.

This is a subject I need all the education I can get

I have always had a hard time wrapping my head around Poch and PBP variations and I am very eager to learn

A great thread Marco, very informative I have a keen interest in Poch and PBP figure variants myself
here is my class II Poch dengar, he has the same double HK coo as pictured in your post.
I think You can also see evidence of mixed up limbs by the difference in paint colour between his arms.

Fantastic thread Marco! I have a few POCH/PBP but my knowledge about these guys is pretty weak so this thread was a great read for me!

I've never noticed noticed a figure with two COOs and I had no idea these figures were made from parts from different factories. You guys make me feel like a variant dummy....

I have a dumb question. Considering the head on the brown haired Luke is imported, would it be possible to boil and pop a normal Kenner head and fix it to a POCH body? Or would the welding etc give it away?

Heres a few of my class 2 hybrids......

Ben Kenobi white and grey hair

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I was always under the impression that the white hair Ben is not pure Poch as grey was only released
also if you look at the saber arm the paint on the white haired ben looks pinkish (although I think im reading too far in this one , it looks like Poch pale paint to me as well

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Han Solo
pure Poch on the left , smaller (than Kenner) belt buckle pale hands , fat eyebrows
on right thin eyebrows (mixed up category 2)

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Lobot
reddish cyborg paint , Poch , excessive flashing on hands , meltmarks on back
mixed up category 2 pink hands not Poch
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Thanks you Chris and Bill for posting a few more examples of Class II figures having PBP painted parts mixed with Kenner parts.
Cool figures!

@Christian: good question, I think the difference can not be seen if done carefully.
That's why I like to buy Poch figures from Spanish childhood collections, to be sure these are authentic.

Dr Dengar wrote:Thanks you Chris and Bill for posting a few more examples of Class II figures having PBP painted parts mixed with Kenner parts.
Cool figures!

@Christian: good question, I think the difference can not be seen if done carefully.
That's why I like to buy Poch figures from Spanish childhood collections, to be sure these are authentic.

90% of my poch figures have come from Spanish collections or sellers also . the others or 3 figures have come from people who know their stuff though as well. my first poch figure was a painted pants rebel soldier so that one was a no brainer and it matches completely with my other poch rebel soldier that I bought later that is completely not sonic welded

Same here, Bill. I buy Poch figures from just a few trusted sellers/collectors who either know their stuff and/or have access to Spanish childhood collections

Nowadays there are many many socalled Poch figures for sale on ebay which are just regular Kenner figures.

Great thread Marco! Let me see if I can contribute with some hybrid/frankenstein Poch figures also. It should be possible at least - also some that we havn't seen yet in this thread. To me it seems like, that some Poch characters are much more frequently mixed up than others. Here I'm in particular thinking about Dengar, Lobot, Leia Hoth, Vader as well as a few others.

Great that you chimed in, Kenneth.

I am looking forward to your selection of Poch Class II figures.

me too . actually I think ive purchased figure or 2 from you Kenneth ??? correct?? cant wait to see the pictures

Thank you Chris for your analysis on the Darth Vader.  
This is a very tough figure to be able to distinguish parts from different steel moulds, so great job that you took the effort to do so.
The figure looks mixed up for sure.

On a side not: It seems tough to make a distinction between a Class I figure (PBP painted parts only, plastic parts might originate from two different moulds) and Class II figure (PBP and Kenner painted parts combined into one figure) in the case of Darth Vader. Vader has so little paint applied. Do you think that there is an unique Poch paint scheme for Vader?
Maybe a topic for a different thread?

Bill, I think, that you're right about that. I just don't recall which figures LOL. Could it have been a chocolate brown legs Poch Han Hoth Or/and a Rebel Soldier?

Marco, Hybrid Poch Snowie will be the first (this weekend if not before).

Chris, Nice to see my old mixed up Poch Vader again. As far as I recall, you and I did discuss some of the mixed up parts all ready back then (leg and head at least). The three large HK coo Vaders that I have owned, including your sample, all have the exact same meltmark on the left side of the butt. I never to date saw this imperfection on a Kenner Vader (large HK coo) sample - or on any other Kenner Vaders for that matter.

Aside from the imperfections like the cracks in the necks, meltmarks, poor welding etc I cannot see any unique paint on Poch Vaders in general speaking (not on the chest plate either) leading me to the conclusion, that PBP didn't paint the Kenner Asian vader parts but simply assembled the Vaders with these parts from at least two of the three Kenner HK factories. As for the capes found with poch vaders there is at least one very interesting type, but we can discuss that one on another occasion.

I fully admit though, that I'm no Vader focus collector - neither have I ever considered Vader a very interesting character within the vintage Kenner line of figures. Therefore guys like you Chris, Oscar, Bill McBride and others have much more knowledge about vintage Vader variants generally - including possible small sculpt differences and similar.

Kenneth_B wrote:Bill, I think, that you're right about that. I just don't recall which figures LOL. Could it have been a chocolate brown legs Poch Han Hoth Or/and a Rebel Soldier?

yes Kenneth. I think it was a chocolate legs han and a leia hoth with greenish boots , still need a green eyebrows though

I look forward to this thread and learning everyday about what others have , from the experts