A Big Reveal (Part 4)

So I'd discovered that the blue and yellow KO Beachcomber I'd bought and sold from the Spanish seller was in fact the exact inverse of Ras's yellow and blue KO Beachcomber from the Mallorcan gumball. This newer variant came from Extremadura and was apparently found in a street market. Clearly, it was not a one-off bootleg and multiple variants were suddenly a possibility. I just didn't realise how many variants. I've spoken at length in this series of posts about discoveries, yet at every step I've suggested that the big news was just around the corner. Time to get serious now, and not just because many knowledgeable Spanish collectors and enthusiasts have been posting comments on the blog giving away the "Big Reveal" details ;)

Having asked the seller of my Beachcomber KO if he could get me any more, or if he knew anything about the extent of the line, the next bombshell dropped. He had four more bootleg Spanish minibots, and he'd had them since childhood. That meant that these items were not as recent as we believed, they were in fact vintage bootlegs, and not exclusive to Mallorca. And then he offered to send me pictures:

Jaws on floors

All the same factory stickers

Not only were the Beachcomber bootlegs from Spain available in blue and yellow, but also in red and yellow. Once again, inverse variants existed, but the stickers on the roof and legs were the same across all 4 Beachcomber KO variants. The fact that they were from the seller's childhood, so late 1980s/early 1990s meant the whole Formula 1 Renault/Alonso influence was out the window. 

Yellow/red Beachcomber KO from Spain

Give this guy a name!

It's more likely that the red and yellow schemes referenced Spanish national flag colours and the blue and yellow one of the regional Spanish flags (Asturias or Canary Islands). these colour schemes were picked simply because they looked nice. Pablo, the seller, told me that these minibots were bought circa 1990 and that they were available in small shops and drug stores. 

Red and yellow Spanish KO Beachcomber

Yep, he's going to need a name too

Pablo also mentioned that the toys were sold basically loose without any sort of card or box artwork or overarching design aesthetic to the packaging. Once he gave me the name of the company responsible for selling these toys in Spain, the floodgates well and truly opened, it was quite literally a key that unlocked a chest of treasures.

I did say that Pablo mentioned he had four minibots, didn't I?

End of Part 4

All the best
Maz