F.I.G.I.R. - one more "wooly hippo".

Yesterday I received one more "Wooly hippo ", which is also made in Italy    

He is from a brand which the seller called "Figir", and I could not find almost nothing about it on the net.
But at last I found this page : http://www.labottegadelsoldatino.it/ , and the brand is F.I.G.I.R. (Fabbrica Italiana Giocattoli Infrangibili Roma), which made composition models up till 1950 .
I google-translated some of it, and it turns out that F.I.G.I.R. mainly made toy soldiers, but also made a series of zoo animals in composition material  

What a happy looking guy  
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Even if "Infrangibili" means unbreakable, he is a little damaged, - but then, he is probably a lot older than I am    
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Meeting the latest hippo from Schleich :
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The Chialu wooly joined the chorous  
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Someday wooly hippos will take over the world Congrats on the new member of the club!

Very nice catch of an interesting brand :))
Congrats Susanne. Thank you for shareing :)

A interesting hippo!!  Big congratulations,  a great catch!!

congrats on both the hippo and gaining info :)

Thankyou Kosta, Andreas and Laura

Discovering new brands! FIGIR, never heard of it before you telling me. It seems there is an interesting Italian tradition of vintage toys that we don't know yet very well. British, German and French toys seems more popular around. It is not easy to find more information than what you have found.
We can read in that website that composition was replaced by plastic in 1968 for soldiers, so much probably the same happened with animals. Your hippo have for sure not less than 50 years. I believe we can find more information about the Zoo collection if we contact Mr. Antonini, not the original founder but a 3rd generation person of the family that is keeping the business. Anyone with good Italian?

Nice whippo and interresting informations. Italian member help is needed

Kikimalou wrote:

...... Italian member help is needed

There have been two books on Italian figures covering composition, but both were a while ago now and limited/private publications. The first had very good potted-histories of the main companies, most of whom started with composition....or 'pasta'.

One had a website/webpage but I've lost it, maybe someone has it bookmarked?

Here is one of them!

Added - The book page here lists three, the bottom one is the one I was thinking of, the middle one is more general and covers other countries products, the top one is the newer one I havn't seen yet, but it sounds good!

Thank you for the link Smallscaleworld

Susanne, the more I look at this Happypotamus, the more I love it

Yes, many thanks Hugh! I e-mailed Lorenzo Antonini, the current owner of a shop of soldier toys called La Bottega del Soltadino. I did it in English but if I have the luck of having a reply, I'll share with all of you.

Thankyou very much Smallscaleworld

Christophe, - Fippopotamus sends you a serenade

Roger wrote:

Yes, many thanks Hugh! I e-mailed Lorenzo Antonini, the current owner of a shop of soldier toys called La Bottega del Soltadino. I did it in English but if I have the luck of having a reply, I'll share with all of you.

WOW ! That was fast ! Hurray for our great crocodile

Thank you for this information :)