KNOCK-OFF BOX ART

Fighting Yank/ Johnny Combat Sets

These are accepted to be the earliest Fighting Yank packaging. This is an excellent example of how the knock-off market functioned. If your retail competition had a Fighting Yank "exclusive" you could have Johnny Combat...















Subsequent run packaging variants.






















Fighting Ace Sets



These are excellent quality. Sometimes the only way you can tell the difference between FA and GI Joe is by the stamp.









Here is a 1966 JC Penney catalog ad featuring their "exclusive" uniform sets. They look to be a mix of My Buddy and Fighting Ace sets.

Great items Doug! Thanks for sharing!

Those are fantastic Doug !! never seen those before, great upload

Superb i can honestly see where most of my knock off bits are from now

Nice sets those joe thanks for showing them

Totally fascinating. Some of the uniforms and extra bits like the snow shoes oils be VAM or Gi Joe. I can. Ertainly see the appeal of collecting these. Great upload Doug

OMG, just found this little treasure post! Very cool items indeed, these type of sets bring back memories for me

I remember knock off sets being sold in my local newsagents/sweetshop in the late 60's, they were pocket money sets, there was a lot of it about back then. I remember getting a Redbox Polar ski set plus some other carded items, one of the sets had a roll of 1/6 barbed wire and some sandbags, i remember opening the set in my back garden, it was a bright sunny day and no doubt 1/6 war was on the cards down the end of my garden, that's all i remember.

The quality of the early knock-off sets certainly compared well to Joe/Action Man. I remember buying a Red-Box Dress Pilot uniform that had thick material and a well tailored shirt. As far as I know Palitoy never released the GI Joe Dress Pilot in Action Man packaging, so a knock-off version was all that was available.

WOW Never seen before.

It's so surprising how many do make knock offs. Sometimes with KO that excel the original ideas too LOL

Looking at these they kind of have a SOTW feel to them, or is the quality Joe standard?

Cool stuff!

Most interesting , thank you for posting , I have had some of that stuff in the past I am sure , but never really new it`s history .

Nice post and some cool artwork on the packages thanks for sharing a great collection