Oddjob Vintage Gilbert Prototypes

There was a recent find that I wanted to document here. Vintage Oddjob Gilbert prototype heads. There were 9 in the find and I was able to snag 7 of them.

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Comments

  • thespyboys11thespyboys11 Lindenwold,NJPosts: 1,844MI6 Agent
    Aren't these just resin recasts taken from the Oddjob Gilbert figure? I see the Bond head recast all the time on eBay. --Ed
  • PoorMansJBPoorMansJB USAPosts: 1,198MI6 Agent
    Aren't these just resin recasts taken from the Oddjob Gilbert figure? I see the Bond head recast all the time on eBay. --Ed

    Afraid I'd concur; this type of resin wouldn't have existed -- or at least not been in common usage -- circa '64/'65.
  • ryan0001ryan0001 Posts: 6MI6 Agent
    Nah, I doubt you could make a defined recast with a soft rubber hollow doll head. They are likely test shots as they're the same size as the production head, but have more definition including fine aspects that didn't come through on the production head. Also they have a lot of age discoloration and half of them have old worn marker pen on top of their heads. The seller I bought them from said they were from an estate auction of a collector that had thousands of prototypes (mostly Disney and superheroes) and the seller does indeed have many of these Disney protos for sale still. My research leads me to believe this collector was actually a toy designer named Gene Salamacha whose estate indeed included many Disney and superhero protos.
  • ryan0001ryan0001 Posts: 6MI6 Agent
    My camera is a 12 year old 3 megapixel that was dropped and subsequently "fixed" by a camera shop, but was never the same. Here are the pics from the auction I won which show some of the detail on these better:

    gilbert%20oddjob%20pic1_zpsrxsqzivr.jpg

    gilbert%20oddjob%20pic2_zps7ndjaw2s.jpg

    gilbert%20oddjob%20pic3_zpsqlzh4bg7.jpg
  • ryan0001ryan0001 Posts: 6MI6 Agent
    Here are a couple pictures of one of the ones with the most discoloration (again taken with my crappy camera). But probably the biggest smoking gun with regards to their authenticity are some of the fine sculpting details present. I have a very nice production figure and those details aren't present. For instance some fine sculpting details are present on the protos below where the paint ends on the left eyebrow of the production version and those details aren't there on the production version. You simply can't get fine sculpting details on a recast that didn't come though on the soft rubber production head in the first place.

    IMG_1369_zpsl7plryf4.jpg

    IMG_1364_zps0bjrpvvz.jpg
  • thespyboys11thespyboys11 Lindenwold,NJPosts: 1,844MI6 Agent
    "Nah, I doubt you could make a defined recast with a soft rubber hollow doll head"

    Actually, you can and very easily. I was co-owner of a garage kit company (Necronomi-Concepts) and, if done properly, you can turn out very detailed resin copies that are indistinguishable from the original. Personally, I hope they are original test pulls as you may have paid a lot for them and you have nothing to prove here. I appreciate your showing them to us. it's not like you posted them to try and get someone to buy them off you.
    Also, try taking a good photo of your production piece next to one of these castings. better lighting and clearer photos would help also. --Ed
  • ryan0001ryan0001 Posts: 6MI6 Agent
    "Nah, I doubt you could make a defined recast with a soft rubber hollow doll head"

    Actually, you can and very easily. I was co-owner of a garage kit company (Necronomi-Concepts) and, if done properly, you can turn out very detailed resin copies that are indistinguishable from the original. Personally, I hope they are original test pulls as you may have paid a lot for them and you have nothing to prove here. I appreciate your showing them to us. it's not like you posted them to try and get someone to buy them off you.
    Also, try taking a good photo of your production piece next to one of these castings. better lighting and clearer photos would help also. --Ed

    I believe you, but I know they're real. If you have one in front of you, you can tell they're very old as they have a certain shine and petrification to them, especially on the faces. And as I stated before, you can't get fine sculpting details on a recast that didn't come though on the rubber production head in the first place.
  • thespyboys11thespyboys11 Lindenwold,NJPosts: 1,844MI6 Agent
    All good and, again, you don't have anything to prove. Thanks again for sharing. --Ed
  • ryan0001ryan0001 Posts: 6MI6 Agent
    I got a new camera and took some pics to compare the proto to the production version. I snapped a pic of the same one above with the discoloration. The biggest give away that I can see are the fine sculpting details on the proto below where the paint ends on the left eyebrow of the production version which aren't there on the production version.

    Also, the dark discolored ring is splotchy and looks like when you leave scotch tape on something for 20+ years. There's no stickiness there so maybe the tape was taken off quite awhile ago if it's indeed from tape. The transition between the discolored ring and the more typical colored area is smooth to the touch.

    Oddjob%20proto%20600%20pixels_zpsq6eekfq5.jpg

    Oddjob%20prod%20600%20pixels_zpsslmgtfwa.jpg
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