Back in the early days of Playmobil, several sets were issued which contained a single figure with a few accessories, perhaps a horse or a wheelbarrow, a donkey or a barrel of beer.
Often known as ‘Singleklicky’ sets (it’s obvious why!), these were perhaps produced as ‘pocket money’ items with which children could supplement their growing PM collection. They are quite like fore-runners of the Specials or even Mystery Fi?ures. Each set had one figure (48 male, 11 female) with fixed wrists (non-rotatable) and several accessories. In many sets (perhaps all), there was a stand for the klicky’s feet, often in black but sometimes in grey, fawn or other dull colour.
These sets show a cross-section of klickies, themes and accessories from the first five years of Playmobil. Many of the parts (and all the klickies) were superceded by more sophisticated versions in the 1980s and later, but I find these early fixed-wrist figures and their often simple accessories have considerable charm (my wife dislikes them, however!). Some of these sets contain excellent and unique parts, like a range of fancy cloaks, the yoke for carrying two buckets in 3372x, the twin ink stand with yellow quills in 3375 or the yellow poke bonnet in 3345x.
By the way, many early set numbers were used again later, so I have followed the convention (as used by Heather in PlaymoDB) of adding an x to the number of the older set.
Here are the 59 sets I regard as falling within the Singleklicky category. This list differs slightly from, say, PlaymoDB (Heather has 45 sets in this category). I have added
another 14 sets which Heather has listed in other themes (Police, Indians, Knights, Riding Stables, Construction, Farm) but which fit the criteria for singleklicky sets (fixed wrists, single klicky, date range).
I used the photos showing set contents at
www.klickywelt.de (Datenbank-Setinhalt topic) to verify what each set contained, or box pictures (e.g. from
www.playmobil.de) where the sets were not displayed in the Datenbank-Setinhalt topic.
Here are the 59 sets in order of year of release:
Pictures of individual sets (in order of year of release)
3124x Indian and Horse 1974
This set has only a few simple accessories; similar parts were included in several other early Indian sets. 3255x is a similar (if not identical) set from 1974-5.
3134x Knight and Horse 1974
Another simple set with few accessories. Chrome torsos were found in sets issued between 1974 and 1977.
3138x Knight 1974
Another chrome torso. This one has an unusual “axe pike” and a black stand,
3210y Construction Worker with Wheelbarrow 1974-5
An old-style wheelbarrow, plenty of tools and a hard hat convert this klicky into a construction worker. The old style of hard hat differs a lot from later versions, but the tools have changed little over the years.
3265y Knight on Horse 1974-5
Another chrome-torso’d knight with a small red cloak and an old-style red flag. The flagpoles were chrome in the early days, replaced with black ones later on.
3380 Nuremburg Guard 1974-5
Stickers on tabard, trumpet, flag and drum with the striking black-on-yellow eagle and red and white diagonal stripes make this a distinctive livery, used in other sets.