Chief Thunderbird

Mike Jackson’s Hartland Photos:
Chief Thunderbird & Variations

All scanned images and text copyright Mike Jackson 1997-2001 and not to be used by
others without permission! Scanned Tags, Literature, Boxes and such for reference only.

The photos above represent the basic configurations of the Chief Thunderbird sets. #813 was the first new set created by Hartland in 1954 (fairly educated guess), following the large and small champs in both Cowboy and Cowgirl sets. The first horse used with Chief Thunderbird had no “molded-in” bridle and could be found in black and also brown. The brown and white bridleless pinto was also used for a short time with the earliest Tonto sets. From 1959 to 1962, Hartland put the figure on a new warpaint semi-rearing horse to effectively create a new set. In 1988 and again in1994, Stevens Plastics re-issued the Chief Thunderbird set and changed most of the color scheme. Unlike most sets produced after the first Chief Thunderbirds, this set was not modeled after a TV show.

Early Chief Thunderbird & Black Pinto Northwind (without molded bridle) #813-BKP
The Chubby Horse used with the early Chief Thunderbird sets is the first horse created by Hartland following the small Champ Horse. It was also painted in brown and white as shown below. This set shipped with a yellow knife, yellow tomahawk, yellow bow, black and white spear, and red blanket. Most Chief Thunderbirds had the mold mark “©Hartland Plastics, Inc.” on the back of the fringe on the right leg, however a few few of them were shipped with no markings. That set will be discussed in another section below.

Early Chief Thunderbird & Brown Northwind (without molded bridle) #813-BNP
This set was available at the beginning, but seems to have been phased out in the first year or two. Except for the brown and white or caramel and white horse colors, the set was identical to the black and white set shown above. More than likely, this set was only shipped in the generic cardboard box.

Early Chief Thunderbird & Black Pinto Northwind (with molded bridle) #813
I don't have any records to document whether this horse is harder to find than the one without the bridle, but the set in general is pretty easy to find. All the earlier sets were shipped with the braided rope reins. The other noticeable difference in this later horse and the earlier one is the shape of the tail, as seen above. Most of the sets with the black and white pinto seem to have also had a black and white spear, but by about 1958, it might have been possible to get the red and white spear as illustrated in a Wards Christmas Catalog. I believe that by the time they went to this version of the horse, the earlier brown and white pinto had been phased out and the set was simplified to just #813 without the qualifiers.

This is a fairly rare piece in my collection. A friend of mine has a complete one—I still need the original spear. Some of the sets lacked the Hartland mold marks, and the Indian’s skin on those sets seem to be quite a bit darker. I believe a few of the sets were shipped with the special warbonnet and spear. The black and white Northwind would have been the earlier, bridleless, version. One Hartland photograph does show this set complete with the shield and rifle. The unbroken “tree” shown near the bottom of the page will prove that the parts were originally included in the mold. There is an additional band of red at the bottom of the warbonnet and several extra bands of red on the spear. (the photo below is not original, I did the red trim in Photoshop for illustration purposes)

Scarce Variation

Early Chief Thunderbird & Black Northwind (without molded bridle) #813 and specially painted parts: This set is very similar to the one shown above except for some extra detailing on the figure, plus extra detailing on the weapons. This variation could very well be the one shown on the Hartland Photograph shown by click on the link. The figure has a grayed blue green loincloth, dark moccasins with beadwork detailing and silver triangles on his knife sheath. Additionally, the lips are painted with a lighter shade and he has painted eyes and eyebrows! As in the previous set shown, the figure lacks any sort of mold mark and has slightly darker skin than many of the later figures. These are some of the most highly detailed small parts I have seen on any Hartland set.

The basic figure on the early sets did not have any additional warpaint on their chest or body. Their red and white warbonnets were used throughout the vintage years with the few rare exceptions of the black tipped sets shown above. This warbonnet is different than the one used with Brave Eagle.

Most shields seem to have been shipped with Brave Eagles, but they fit on the arm of Chief Thunderbird and were obviously designed for him. This would be the basic weapons for the Black and White Thunberbird sets.
Repro Parts available, CLICK HERE!

The red plastic blankets were used on Thunderbird sets and also Brave Eagle.

Most early sets probably were shipped in the generic cardboard boxes, shown below, but later sets probably did get the newer four color photo box shown to the left.

The photo to the far left is the one used in the early brochures for the early style Chief Thunderbird sets. I don’t believe the earliest sets had tags, but if they did they probably resembled the ones used with the later Warpaint sets.

Warpaint Chief Thunderbird Sets

Warpaint Chief Thunderbird & Pinto Northwind #813 (Full Wavy Tail)
In roughly 1959, Hartland made a change to the Chief Thunderbird sets they had been shipping for several years by moving him to one of the newer semi-rearing horses. This horse has the special red and blue warpaint markings and the figure also got warpaint on his cheeks and chest. The spear was changed over to the red and white version, too.

Warpaint Chief Thunderbird & Pinto Northwind #813 (Smooth Wavy Tail)
It is hard to say exactly when they switched to the smoother tailed horse for this set, but the numbers seem about equal. I wouldn’t say that one is any more valuable or desirable than the other. The sets are hard enough to find in the first place to worry about whether it has the smooth or wavy tail! This is one of my favorite Hartland sets.

The same warbonnet and parts were used with the newer Warpaint Chief Thunberbird sets except for the red used on the spear.

Most shields seem to have been shipped with Brave Eagles, but they fit on the arm of Chief Thunderbird and were obviously designed for him. This would be the basic weapons for the Warpaint Thunberbird sets.
Repro Parts available, CLICK HERE!

The red plastic blanket shown here is the same one used with the Thunderbird earlier sets and also the same as Brave Eagle’s.

By the time the Warpaint Chief Thunderbird sets shipped, Hartland would have been using the colorful shipping boxes. This one is shared with Earp and the Mounties.

This set recently appeared on eBay and the sellers, topnotchtoys, gave me permission to use the photo. This shows a gem mint set with all the original parts. The set was packaged in mint green tissue paper and included the tag and brochure. You can see the spear, bow, knife and tomahawk in the sealed parts package, similar to the one I show below. It does not include the shield. The tag shown in the photo and enlarged below probably only came with the warpaint set.

Warpaint Thunderbirds were listed in the brochures from 1959 to 1962 and proved to be a very popular set. The photo on the far left was used in later brochures. I don’t think the earlier style Thunderbirds came with a tag. They are quite hard to find!

Stevens Plastics Chief Thunderbirds

In 1988, Stevens plastics recreated the Chief Thunderbird sets in white styrene. So far, I have never found one of these sets available to purchase, but I don't think they are that rare. One collector told me he was able to buy a pile of them at a Wal-Mart store on the discount rack for about $9 a set. The small knife and tomahwak are white and the spear has some unusual markings. Stevens produced the white bows and white rifles but did not ship them with the sets. Since 1988, a few of them have surfaced through an employee of the company at the time. All the vintage bows were molded in yellow. The white ones you might see are probably from the 1988 batch....or possibly a few are from the reproductions I have sold over the years.

Stevens 1994 Chief Thunderbirds
This is probably the nicest set the Stevens/Hartland company made in the early 90s. The problem is they only made a few of them and they are fairly hard to find. The paint texture is slightly more powdery feeling than the old sets. To my knowledge, there were only 12-24 ever produced (another author seems to think there might be as many as 100). The markings were hand painted. It is a really nice set...best of the group but very rare.

The 1994 Thunderbird figure has a red loincloth instead of blue. The warbonnet is similar to the rare black tipped warbonnets, but the black is airbrushed and not masked. The blanket is red, but not as glossy and slightly duller in color than the vintage pieces.

Stevens completely painted the weapons, leaving none of the white plastic showing through. This is the only Chief Thunderbird sets with a heavily detailed paint job on the shield. Early sets were all white. The sets were shipped in a colorful Hartland Horseman see through box. The 1994 Stevens brochure showed the Thunderbird set with the 1988 paint job.

Additional Chief Thunderbird Notes:

Figure No.	Show Name	Star’s Name	Figure’s Name	Studio Name	Show Year	Brochure Years
813 (B&W)	No Series	No Series	Chief Thunderbird	NA	NA	1955-1958
813 (WP)	No Series	No Series	Chief Thunderbird	NA	NA	1959-1962

Additional Chief Thunderbird literature and photos: This page includes some scans of catalog & dealer sheets.

This “tree” is from the 1994 Stevens Plastics, Inc. run of the Chief Thunderbird shown above. It confirms that the shield and rifle were originally designed to be included with the Chief Thunderbird sets and not the Brave Eagle sets.

Thanks to Diana McKenzie for the catalog photo!

1960 Alden’s Christmas Book:
This photo seems to account for the fact that the Warpaint Thunderbird horse shows up more often than the figure. The text next to the photo doesn’t mention a blanket and it doesn’t appear to show a blanket in the photo—just a little bag of candy. Of special interest, they must have reversed the negative when producing the photograph as the horse has the wrong leg raised and the markings are from the other side of the horse.

If you collect very long, you will probably run across one of these figures. This set was made by Lido. Check out this link to see a variety of other Knockoffs. There are slight differences in the horse mold and the plastic is thinner. The small parts are usually molded in brown with silver trim, but I have also seen the sets in a variety of bright colors. This one has a woven felt blanket instead of the red plastic blanket, but I do think that some of the knock-offs had red blankets, too. There are also several other knock-offs of this set made by different companies including the one for Well's Lamont shown on the “Non-Hartlands” page.

This is a rare factory sealed package of vintage Chief Thunderbird parts, probably for the Warpaint set. As you can see, there is no shield or rifle included.

Repro Parts available, CLICK HERE!

Over the years, the red or black paint used on the Thunderbird spears varied quite a bit. You can see this in the two packages shown here. The yellow used on the bows, knives and tomahawks also varied quite a bit.

Mold Marks
Thunderbird figure: “©Hartland Plastics, Inc.” on the back of the fringe on the right leg. (with the exception of the eariest versions without the mark).

I hesitate to include this photo on the site. I believe it is shown on another site as a correct variation, but I do not believe it! Occasionally a seller on the Internet auctions will even claim it to be a true combination. To make things even worse, the author of a recent book on the subject says it “may have been the final horse for Chief Thunderbird in the 1960s”. The bare chested Chief Thunderbird figure was produced from about 1954 to 1958, however the mane down horse mold was not created until the later years and this version of the Remuda horse did not appear until 1963, a year after Hartland discontinued the Warpaint set. In my opinion, the timing on the two major elements prohibits this combination from being a legitimate possibility. Additionally, not a shred of proof exists (to my knowledge) showing this set being shipped by the company.