Spotlight on figures: Atlantic's Mezzi del West Series

April 10, 1998.

Following our spotlight on the Gatling Gun set, here are the other 3 Mezzi del West sets:
#1050 Abilene Wild-West City
#1051 Fort Riley Frontier Fort and
#1053 Pioneer Wagons

Fort Riley

This is Atlantic's answer to Airfix's Fort Apache. The fort comes in several sprues, all in an eye pleasing mahogany dark brown. The pieces are rugged and solidly built, the walls and even the ramparts are at least an 1/8 of an inch thick. The material is of soft plastic, just like the figures, and unlike Airfix's hard plastic playforts. One of the reasons Airfix had to use hard plastic for its forts was because it was too big, if they had used soft plastic, the walls would have buckled or bent. The finished fort is rather small, measuring only 5 by 5 1/2 inches. The walls are about 1 1/2 inches high. For the most part, the fort is easy to put together, it's not snap together because it's all soft plastic, just all peg-in-hole construction. It is somewhat difficult to put the outer walls together and it is recommended to get a drill to enlarge the holes in the wall a little to ensure a smooth fitting. Included are 3 ladders which are simply leaned against the ramparts and can easily get lost, in fact, I can no longer find any of the 3 ladders to scan for the page.

Well, it's definitely a toy, you might even affix the label 'cute' to the finished product. Even Airfix's Fort Apache was small and you can fit Fort Riley in the courtyard of Fort Apache. In fact you can fit one inside the other to get a motte and bailey wild west fort.

Fort Riley box, unwrapped and therefore unbuckled:

Front gate, see how thick and sturdy the logs look:

Building inside the fort:


Pioneer Wagons

These are nice wagons. The wagons come in an octagonal sprue, two to a sprue, each sprue is cut in half to fit inside the box. Each box has 4 wagons. The Pioneer Wagon set has always been a hot set, selling at a premium. For some reason wagons have always been a favorite for collectors, Airfix's wagon train, one of the most unmilitary of sets, sells for amongst the highest price of all the old Airfix's. This wagon is well built, with two strong muscular oxen, our two good friends from the Gatling Gun set, a variety of separate acessories such as barrels, picks, spades and a sack of corn which can get easily mistaken for a bed pan.

Pioneer Wagon Riley box:

Wagon, 1/2 an octagon:


Abilene West-City

Though featured on the front cover of Atlantic's catalogue, this is probably the most unloved of all the Mezzi del West sets. There are two identicle sprues inside (each sprue is cut in half to fit in the box), one in light brown and one in dark brown. Each sprue can form by itself 3 small buildings, two small ones and a large one. It was only after completely assembling all 3 buildings in one color from one sprue that I noticed prison boy had thoughtfully and correctly assembled the buildings from separate sprues to form multicolored buildings, of course by then it required too much effort to reassemble the buildings.

There is no underestimating the influence of Western Movies in this set. For example, the labels or decals that come with the set leaves no doubt as to what the 6 small buildings are supposed to be: bank, hotel, jail, sheriff, saloon, and store. These are so stereotypical and cliched as to make them humorous for today's collectors, your HO cowboys would come to town and stay in the HOTEL, and then they would go to the STORE to buy supplies, that night they would go to the SALOON to pick up on the gossip, next morning they would rob the BANK, the SHERIFF would come out and beat them to the draw and they would go to JAIL.

The main complaint that buyers have about this set is also probably Atlantic's unrecognized tribute to the movies and movie sets. The buildings are ludicrously small, they have a somewhat adequate storefront but have no depth. Actually they look like perfect movie sets. Put one down on its own and it looks strange but put three side by side like the photograph on the front panel and you have that perfect scene in front of the bank or hotel where the sheriff beat your cowboys to the draw. You can even put your cowboy on the roof and have him flip onto the street. We may very well have been underestimating Atlantic all along.

Abiline box:

Building 1:

Building 2 and 3:
and

Some final thoughts: By themselves each set is quite nice and worth a spot on the collector's shelf. Put them all together and you'd have quite an impressive diorama set. Certainly neither Airfix nor any of the other 1/72 scale makers have ever come up with anything this grand. Add together today's Airfix's, Revell's, IMEX's Italeri's and Atlantic's own Western figures and you'd really have one super duper playset.

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