Throughout the 70s and 80s, PVC figurines
were very popular in comic shops, as cake toppers, and in gumball
machines. PVC stands for Poly Vinyl Chloride, the basic plastic
that most toys are made from. Many characters were made over the
years, and Iron Man is no exception. These are generally around
2" to 3" tall, with sculpting ranging from decent to
atrocious. The earliest PVC figures to really make a splash were
the "Comics Spain" ones. Comics Spain was a company
that produced a set of Marvel and DC 3" pvc figures in the late
1970s that were prized for a time mainly for being the only versions
existing of many of the characters such as Punisher and Dr. Doom.
By today's standards, these are pretty crude, but they did get
the whole "red/gold" thing right, as seen above. Those were followed
by Applause PVCs (shown below) and other ornamental figure companies.
If anyone can specifically place these figures, or have shots
of other IM PVCs, drop me
a line.
