She's Fantastic: Vintage Goodness: MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Vintage Goodness: MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES!

1988 G.I.Joe knock-offs from Berchet of France

I first discovered Mission Medecins San Frontieres ("Doctors Without Borders") on yojoe.com many years ago in their "Not G.I.Joe" section. The information on that site was basic, but it prompted me to do some research and discover the rest of the line. It was a LONG time before I finally was able to get the two females of the set. I didn't pay much for them, roughly $2.00 each (plus crazy shipping from France), so I don't think they're excessively valuable or anything, but I rarely see them on ebay. If you're into G.I.Joe bootlegs, especially ones with original sculpting details, this is definitely a series you should be hunting down.

The first female of the group is Anne the Doctor. She has a body that is very similar to G.I.Joe's 1987 Jinx figure from Hasbro. The differences are minor, a few clothing wrinkles are absent, the cuffs of her pants are changed, and she appears to have a new crotch piece. Even with all those differences the bodies are uncannily similar (see comparison pics at the bottom).

The second female was an African woman named Melissa. It's unclear if she's intended to be a patient or a friend to the foreign doctors, but I tend to think friend since there are other figures who are clearly patients (and Melissa doesn't have the obvious bandages or crutches). I believe this figure is the first black female ever to be made in "G.I.Joe form" (although it's possible a figure in 1988's Bronze Bombers series came first)

Melissa also shares a very similar body with that of Jinx, but this figure has many more sculpted differences separating her from the Hasbro figure.

Anne the Doctor came with a white cloth coat with a Red Cross sticker as a breast insignia. She also came with a white medical case. Melissa came with a stretcher which also has a sticker festooned with the Red Cross logo, albeit much larger this time.