It’s been a while since I posted anything on what are easily my favorite Heche en Mexico lucha libre souvenirs — the 3″ poorly molded and even more poorly painted gems we refer to simply as “bag figures.”
This particular batch are going on 18 years old or so, and what was originally pretty lousy paint to start with is starting to flake off at an alarming rate.
The Konnan above is losing his polka dots, while this rather Destroyer or Mr. Wrestling-like Gladiador has increasingly transparent whites.
From the same bag, this Bomba Infernal is losing his yellows, while the same color is mostly fine on Super Raton (the 90’s in-ring knock-off of Mighty Mouse!). However, any red applied directly to the cheap plastic as opposed to that painted on top of the yellow is not long for this world.
The plastics used in these cheap figurines is recycle from other melted down toys, thus prone to wildly inconsistent surfaces. Add paints that range from model enamel to low-grade home interior remnants and makes for a rather fragile collectible. Such is the fleeting beauty of cottage-industry bootleg toys…