posted 04-23-2016 03:05 PM               

I have seen only a handful of these miniatures over the years; they are certainly less common than their full size counterpart. The most recent was at a high profile auction in Europe approximately two years ago.

The auction house appraisers (with impeccable credentials I might add) believed these miniatures were made for cosmonauts who, for whatever reason, were unable to buy or keep their flown pressure suits. It was claimed that the miniatures were made by Zvezda.

Other hypothesise suggest that these were some kind of "sales rep" samples to be shown to potential space faring parties with manned space flight plans of their own i.e. the Chinese.

Enquiries of Zvezda turned up only the statement, "We do not manufacture miniature suits." Perhaps not now but according to the auction house these miniatures were manufactured back in the mid to late 1980s.

Such is the attention to detail, the materials used and the exquisite functionality of the miniature I cannot see anybody other than Zvezda producing these half scale replicas. Can anybody out there give me the definitive breakdown on these miniatures?

posted 04-27-2016 06:30 PM               

He also confirmed they were indeed made by Zvezda.

Thanks you Florian and Gennady for the feedback. The marketing slant makes sense. The children/photo op less so. While the suit unzips it would not be possible even for a child to climb inside not least because there is a skeletal armature sewn inside that allows the suit to articulate and bend at the elbows, knees and waist.