Atlantic was an Italian toy manufacturing company based in

Treviglio Treviglio (, Bergamasque: ) is a town and ''comune'' (i.e. municipality) in the province of Bergamo, in Lombardy, Northern Italy. It lies south of the province capital, in the lower territory called "Bassa Bergamasca". It's also part of the geo ...

, being in business from 1966 to 1984. In the 1970s it became widely popular both in Italy and in Europe as a producer of scale models ships, 1:72- and HO-scale

toy soldier A toy soldier is a miniature figurine that represents a soldier. The term applies to depictions of uniformed military personnel from all eras, and includes knights, cowboys, American Indians, pirates, samurai, and other subjects that involve ...

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a co ...

s. The original Atlantic company ceased to exist in 1984; in the late 1990s, the "Atlantic" brand and logo were acquired by Nexus Editrice.

History

Atlantic began producing toy soldiers in the late 1960s, achieving a great popularity in 1971 with the HO scale plastic toy soldier series "Soldati d'Italia" ("Italian soldiers") dedicated to the different branches of the contemporary

Italian army "The safeguard of the republic shall be the supreme law" , colors = , colors_labels = , march = ''Parata d'Eroi'' ("Heroes's parade") by Francesco Pellegrino, ''4 Maggio'' (May 4) ...

. Based on this success, the company began creating series for the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

armies and other historical periods, including the American Old West, the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

, and Ancient Egypt. The HO toy soldier line was complemented with a vast series of vehicles, from

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...

s to

heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the larges ...

s, as well as buildings (for example, a miniature

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world t ...

was created for the Roman Empire toy soldier series). Starting from 1978, Atlantic also commercialized

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

toy soldier lines, some of which based on Japanese

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

such as ''

Captain Harlock is a fictional character and protagonist of the '' Space Pirate Captain Harlock'' manga series created by Leiji Matsumoto. Harlock is the archetypical Romantic hero, a space pirate with an individualist philosophy of life. He is as noble as ...

'' and ''

Grendizer , known as '' Grandizer'' in the United States, is a Japanese Super Robot anime television series and manga created by manga artist Go Nagai. It is the third entry in the ''Mazinger'' series, however it is non-canon due to '' Mazinger Z: ...

''. Besides toy soldiers, Atlantic produced ''Giocagoal'' (an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

that was a cheaper version of ''

Subbuteo Subbuteo ( ) is a tabletop football game in which players simulate association football by flicking miniature players with their fingers. The name is derived from the neo-Latin scientific name '' Falco subbuteo'' (a bird of prey commonly known ...

''), "Superbasket" (an

action figure An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are usually mark ...

-based board game of

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

), a series of science fiction

s known as " Atlantic Galaxy", a few

s, and other minor toy lines.Extended listing of Atlantic products
at AtlanticMania Atlantic ceased creating new lines in 1978; for a few years, it marketed reprints of its classical lines (mostly in scale 1:72) made with plastic leftovers and sold in cheaper packages. By 1984 all production ceased. Reportedly, most Atlantic toy molds were sold to an

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

i toy company and later got lost or destroyed during the First Gulf War. A few of the molds were acquired by boardgame and toy manufacturer Nexus Editrice, that began creating quality reprints (mostly for the collectors' market) in 1998 and published the

miniature wargame Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which military units are represented by miniature physical models on a model battlefield. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use ...

"Atlantic Wars" based on Atlantic toy soldiers. Nexus currently owns the Atlantic brand and logo.

References

External links

Atlantic Plus
website dedicated to Atlantic and other toy soldiers of the '70s (archived, 3 Dec 2018) {{Scale model brands Toy companies of Italy Toy brands Toy companies established in 1966 Italian brands Italian companies established in 1966