On the occasion of its first half century, Playmobil issued a jubilee knight:
I wasn't blown away at first, but, having inspected him now myself, am quite content with the product and the idea.
With the exception of the hair, the knight is identical with the 30th anniversary knight
4430 of 20 years ago, here on the left:
The big difference is the material. The 30th anniversary knight was famously made using real gold, and that shows. The armor shines and sparkles, but the sheen is also very delicate and few knights remain fresh now, twenty years on. The one I'm showing here still looks good, but many others have turned dull. The jubilee knight's armor is made of a more recent type of metallic gold material, seen for example in the armor parts of
5477 - Goldener Ritter Christopher and
5355 - Eagle Tournament Knight, which appears to be more durable.
The sword of the 30th anniversary knight is chrome, the sword of the jubilee knight is made of the same metallic silver material that is seen, for example, in the armor of
5356 - Lion Tournament Knight.
Turning to the horse, which is the original Version 1, once again back in production. The caparison mirrors another ancient part, namely the horse coat of the
original Golden Knight (a.k.a. Swan Knight) of sets
3654 and
3024 of 1993, resp. 1999, shown here on the right:
As you can see, printing quality in the 1990s was better than nowadays.
How does this all work together as a set? Playmobil is celebrating a
golden jubilee, so obviously something made of gold is called for. The Golden Knight is a famous Playmobil figure, here assembled with parts from different episodes of Playmobil history: the horse from the nineties, the knight from the noughties, and the new gold material from the second decade of this century. I like the idea.
Happy birthday, Playmobil!
