Two notes before we deep dive into the nerdy details here (I can tell you already as excited as me) – the first is the quote in the title here is obvs. from Shakespeare’s Othello, act 3, scene 2. The second is that some of what it written here has already appeared in my vast and sprawling post on all Chinese vintage Godzilla bootlegs, but the discovery of another one merits individual discussion here (and I also get to show you more pictures of it – hooray!).

Recently I chanced on a US eBay listing where the seller had given pictures of the bottom of the feet (thank God[zilla] for this little extra detail that makes my life so much easier -‘vintage_insan_92’ you join the very zenith of my favourite eBay sellers for this simple act; also they have great things and are nice people btw, I urge all readers to go and look). There I saw a familiar mark: a “MADE IN / CHINA” within a small circle, with another inscription-free circle of the exact same size on the sole of the other foot. This mark is shared with three other known bootleg Godzillas – these my:

1. *Bootleg of Imperial model 1, the ‘chonky leg Godzilla’ (the Godzilla on the left in the above image): this a common figure produced by this workshop, and found on every online sale site and in collections across the world;

2. *Bootleg of Imperial model 2, the ‘second spotty finned Godzilla’ (the Godzilla on the right in the image above): this is equally common as the previous model, if not more so, and I am sure is well known to almost every reader here;

3. *Bootleg of Imperial model 3, the ‘Wattle-asaurus’: this is known to me only in two examples – mine and another in a Chilean collection, despite my putting out APBs on this one for several weeks on Instagram and the popular ‘Warriors of the Universe’ group on Facebook.

(Family portrait! The siblings together)

In an attempt not to repeat myself too much, readers can consult my earlier post on Chinese bootleg Godzillas for more detailed information on these. It is suffice here to note that they are quite far apart from each other in design (indeed, I suggested in the earlier post that the workshop were very open to taking inspiration from whatever Godzilla or dinosaur toy was selling well at that moment, leading to this wide and varied series of designs that we might not have associated with each other were it not for the marks under the feet), and that they all have prominent bulging tongues. They appear to have been produced in the second half of the 1980s, perhaps stretching into the early 1990s.

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The newly discovered one sets out on a different path again. It stands some 230mm. tall (the same or very close to the first two models listed above), and weighs 288g. It is made from hollow vinyl, just like its siblings, and articulates like the last two of them (the first one listed above does not articulate at the neck).

Close comparison of the siblings side-by-side shows that while its head sculpt is entirely its own, it shares a general body design and dimensions with the ‘second spotty finned Godzilla’ (where some resculpting has been done, however, to remove the semi-circular roll of flesh that hangs at the neckline of the ‘second spotty finned Godzilla’ – and that inherited by that model from close copying of the Imperial Godzilla), and legs with the ‘Wattle-asaurus’ (all the siblings have common arms, as well as tails, apart from the ‘second spotty finned Godzilla’, where the tail has fins added along its length).

Its head is particularly detailed, and it shares this with ‘second spotty finned Godzilla’ and the ‘Wattle-asaurus’. They all have finely defined muzzles and nostrils, and the new one and the ‘Wattle-asaurus’ extend this to include eyelash-like lines leading away from the eyes. These details probably allow us to identify a single sculptor at work here.

There is something odd about the paint-work here. The base-vinyl is a bright yellow, and to this the painter has added green highlights in the usual places along the spine, upper edges of the arms and legs and a dab in the centre of the chest. However, they then tried to darken the back of the figure, and put a stripe of black paint down the right-hand side of the back of the figure, intensifying the highlighting on the right-hand side of the back and leaving large dark marks on the right shoulder and back of the right leg. It is clear from the extension of the dark spray onto the tail, that the tail was in a position turned 90 degrees counter-clockwise when this additional spray was added – and we can see the trailing off of the single stroke of the airbrush that went down the right side of the body and ended on the tail. No corresponding dark overspray was added to the left-hand side, however, and given the apparent rarity of this piece, I wonder if we are dealing with a trial batch, that were experimented with and then not put into mass production. Only the emergence of others can help with this – and as with the ‘Wattle-asaurus’, I posted images on both Instagram and the ‘Warriors of the Universe’ Facebook group, as well as asked anyone I thought might know of others. This time, I got no affirmative reply– not a sausage, as we say 😉

What can we say about this bootleg workshop? Despite their enormous output they appear to have been a small operation, with a sculpt team of only one or two people. They seem to have been on the hunt for the latest ‘hot cakes’ in the toy market, and were open to tweaking and changing designs to jump on the bandwagon of recent buying trends. Perhaps more than anything else, their bootlegs have charm and tangible appeal – even more, perhaps, than the bootlegs produced by Imperial, Dor Mei and the as yet unnamed ‘company X’ who made the so-called ‘Sharkzilla’. As with other small bootleggers, they seem to have understood that children followed their eyes first in the competitive bootleg toy market, and a little more attention in the design stage would make their products stand out above the competition.

If any reader has another (please go turn your Godzillas over and look at the feet now), perhaps even another model I don’t know about yet – then there is little I will not do for pictures of it (front, back, side and bottom of feet, please).

• 'MUTTON DRESSED AS LAMB': Godzillas and kaiju that look vintage, but are not
• American made Pachi
• BOOTLEG DINOSAURS – a little off topic, but sometimes needed here
• BOOTLEG GODZILLAS
• Bootleg Tokusatsu from the Americas
• BOOTLEG TOKUSATSU HEROES
• Central Europe – Godzillas and kaiju from behind the Iron Curtain
• Chinese-region bootleg Godzillas -the plastic tide from the East
• Chinese-region made Pachi
• European made Pachi
• European-made Godzillas
• PACHI
• Pachi kaiju
• The Americas – bootleg Godzillas from the New World