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Pirates 3922

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playmorten:
This is my first topic, and I can't really find anything else on the forum about this set. But if I have missed it I hope someone can point it out for me. Ok, here goes ...

When I first got into buying old Playmobil sets a couple of years ago, my mind was set on getting all the first era pirates (1978-1981). Looking through the Playmobil Collector book I found something special on page 551, the 3922 set. The book says it's from 1986, which I no way doubt, although the figures, on the box at least, have fixed wrists. 

Almost nothing can be found online about this small set, but I did find a listing on a Swedish auction site. There the box has a price tag of 39 Swedish kronor (about 4 Euro), so at least this was sold in Sweden. (The tag also says this is a clearance price and there will be no in-store wrapping.) This auction listing is where I got the photos of the box, and this is obviously also where Klickypedia found their images.

Looking at the box, you can't really see if the pirate captain is the version with or without the pegleg, and neither if the guy in the middle has his hook or not. But I think the pirate to the left is a fine example of how just giving a klicky a new hat and a tool transforms him or her to something completely different. In this case, from an acrobat to a pirate. Notice also that the flag is the white signal flag, but with the 3570 black flag's sticker.

I haven't been able to find this set, but I did re-create the guy on the left, which you can see on the last photo. Does anyone have more information, or even own this set?

tahra:
I had never seen it before - I mean, maybe I did in the collector, but it wasn't in the tiny booklets I have studied for endless hours when I was a cub...

I guess apart from the box, everything is common...

Macruran:
Playmodb is also short on information!

3922 - Three Pirates

GrahamB:
Thanks for sharing this. It's a set with tantalisingly few details available. Collector has it in the 'various sets' section, which means no-one was sure quite where to put it! It may be what Collector calls an Exclusive set, released to a restricted market (maybe Sweden?). Klickypedia has doubts about the release date. Although fixed wrists appeared on box pictures well after 1980, I doubt this would have been done as late as 1986, especially as it doesn't seem to be a new version of an older set (which is where some box pictures showed fixed wrists even though the contents had free wrists, I believe).

I think it's probably quite rare, though the 24 parts in the set (assuming the green and white klicky does have a hook hand, so no cuff. It seems likely the klicky in black clothes has a peg leg too) are found in many other sets, so it shouldn't be too hard to recreate. The absence of any parts exclusive to this set adds further weight to the idea it was created for a limited market, or in limited numbers.

I wonder why the box picture didn't show the hook hand and peg leg? They are archetypal pirate features. Perhaps this was so the set could be released with 'normal' arms and legs without risk of complaints? Maybe this set was a way of using up parts in stock at the factory (possibly the Maltese one, where klickies were manufactured from the very early days of PM). I have my suspicions this has been done quite often over the years.

playmorten:
Thanks for the comments, all of you, and I think you have a lot of insightful thoughts and question, GrahamB. It could very well be a Swedish exclusive, and should I find more info or even the set itself, I promise to report it here. Yes, it's interesting that the hook and pegleg aren't showing!

The photo on the back is nice, and like others found on the early pirate sets include figures not available, but figures you could easily create yourself. When did Playmobil stop showing alternate Klickys such as these?

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